This past weekend, I planned to write a post on the anniversary of the death of Eddie Gaedel, the midget who played in one game for the 1951 St. Louis Browns, thereby setting the bar for innovative baseball promotions.  June 18 marked the 45th year since Gaedel's untimely 1961 demise, which I was certain would go unreported by the mainstream media but deserved at least an honorable mention in the weekend's news reports.

While cruising Wikipedia tonight, I came across an interesting fact that made me glad I never got around to writing anything worthy of reading.  Gaedel, it turns out, is not the only notable baseball personality (part of me wants to use the word legend, but it's overused to the extent that it has lost much of its meaning) to pass away on June 18, but one of three.  The other two men are both Hall of Famers: announcer Joe Buck, who was honored with the Ford C. Frick award in 1987, and Larry Doby, who not only broke the American League's color line in July 1947 but later became one of the first former major leaguers to play professionally in Japan and was the second black manager in major league history.

(It's ironic, given the stature of Gaedel, Buck and Doby, that when I casually asked my wife about the three, she recognized only the name of "the midget".  Buck was "Joe Buck's father", while Doby was an unknown entity.)

All three of these men are, of course, extremely important to the history of major league baseball.  Gaedel, as previously mentioned, played the principal role in the greatest promotion in major league history, drawing a leadoff walk for St. Louis against Detroit's Bob Cain on August 19, 1951.  It was an act that was so unexpected, so unusual and so original that it remains the gold standard toward which everyone involved in baseball promotions strives to reach and hopefully surpass.

Gaedel worked for Bill Veeck, the owner of the Browns and later the Chicago White Sox, on at least two other occasions, but developed a drinking problem that often caused him to behave in a belligerent manner -- not always the best reaction considering his 3'7, 65 pound frame.  The details of June 18, 1961 are still cloudy, but it is believed that he was followed home after an incident at a local bowling alley, severely beaten and left to be found by his mother.  An alternate theory is that he suffered from an enlarged heart, a condition that when combined with the fight might have been enough to cause his death.  He was 36 years old.  The only baseball person to attend his funeral was Cain.

Jack Buck, on the other hand, enjoyed a long life and career as the broadcaster for the St. Louis Cardinals.  His greatest talent was expressing unbelievable events in the simplest terms, a trait perhaps best exhibited by his two most famous homerun calls: Kirk Gibson's walk-off shot against Dennis Eckersley in Game One of the 1988 World Series ("I don't believe what I just saw!") and Mark McGwire's 61st round tripper in 1998 ("Pardon me while I stand up and applaud.")    Memorably, it was his voice that welcomed baseball back following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks when he fought off illness to appear at Busch Stadium to read a poem he had written about the national tragedy. 

Altogether, Buck worked behind the mic for the Cardinals for 48 seasons, stopping only when lung cancer, Parkinson's disease and a laundry list of other ailments forced him into the hospital in early 2002.  The day he passed away, Cardinals pitcher Darryl Kile pitched the Redbirds into first place in the National League Central Division.  It was Kile's last game before his own death four days later.

And that leaves Larry Doby, one of the great underrated figures in baseball history.  Brought to the major leagues when he was just 23 years old, Doby struggled as an infielder for half a season before moving to the outfield and blossoming into a perennial All-Star for the Cleveland Indians.  After playing out the string in the major leagues, he continued to break down walls, first joining Don Newcombe as the first ex-big leaguers to play in Japan before following Frank Robinson as the second black manager in the major leagues when he took over Veeck's Chicago White Sox in 1978.  Despite these outstanding personal attributes and solid career numbers (which Veeck believed were adversely affected by the pressure bestowed upon him), Doby was not elected to the Hall of Fame until 1998, five years before his death.

As you can see, June 18 was a rough day for baseball.  It was also a rough day for heroic figures who happened to play baseball. 

Rest in peace.

More information about Eddie Gaedel's famous at-bat and life after the fact is available here: ESPN Outside The Lines transcript