Irish stars who hit the base
QUESTION Who is Ireland’s greatest ever baseball player?
IRELAND has produced countless baseball stars, going back nearly 150 years, but perhaps the greatest is a contemporary one, PJ Conlon.
Born on the Falls Road in Belfast in 1993, his family moved to California just before the young lad was two years of age. At 16, he became an American citizen.
He began his professional career in 2015 with the Brooklyn Cyclones in the New York League, before he went on to play for a number of other baseball teams, winning lots of big awards.
He made his debut with the New York Mets on May 1, 2018, playing with an Irish Tricolour stitched into his glove.
Conlon has become the first Irish-born Major League baseball player since Joe Cleary in 1945, so his record has been truly astounding.
Altogether, there have been 40 Irish-born ball players in the major baseball leagues.
Before Joe Cleary’s performance for the Washington Senators in 1945, the previous Major League season to feature Irish-born players, Jimmy Archer and Paddy O’Connor, had been in 1918.
After 1918, Irish baseball players meant Irish-Americans, the sons and grandsons of immigrants, so the Irish origins of baseball players became less remarkable.
Players in the 21st century have come from an ever-expanding range of national origins, which makes the recent achievements of PJ Conlon even more striking.
The earliest Irish-born baseball players were Tommy Bond, from Granard in Co. Longford, who made his debut in 1876; John Curran from Dublin, who also made his baseball start in 1876, as did Jimmy Hallinan, also from Dublin, and John McGuinness, another Dublin native.
In those early days of Irish involvement in baseball, one of the greatest players was Tony Mullane, born in Cork, who began his playing career in 1881. Between then and 1894, he chalked up 284 lifetime wins, mostly in the American Association, but finally in the National League. Another claim to fame by Mullane was that he was one of the few ambidextrous pitchers ever to play the game.
Shortly before Mullane scored so highly, Tommy Bond had a career that was almost as remarkable, between 1876 and 1884. Bond had a total of 214 wins and spent his best years with the National League team the Boston Red Stockings.
Arm problems ended his playing career but both he and Mullane continued their involvement with baseball by becoming umpires.
A third early player also had a fantastic record: Patsy Donovan, born in Queenstown, now Cobh, Co. Cork, who made his debut in 1890 and played until 1907, mainly with the Pittsburgh Pirates and the St Louis Cardinals. During his long career, he played in more baseball games than any other Irish-born player.
Those great players from the early days of the game, right up to the end of the First World War, have now been succeeded in dramatic style by PJ Conlon, the contemporary baseball player who has brought the Irish back to the top of the Major League teams. John Temple, Carlow.
QUESTION Why do some people think it is unlucky to pick up a comb from the ground?
THIS relates to the mythical figure of the banshee. The word banshee comes from the Irish
bean sidhe, meaning ‘woman of the fairies’.
According to legend, the banshee floats through the forests in the dead of night, wailing and keening. The most chilling aspect is her mournful cries that warn humans of an impending death. These cries have been linked with the shriek of a barn owl.
Banshees can take many forms, including that of a beautiful woman with flowing blonde hair, an old hag or even the spirit of an animal. Banshees have been associated with washer women who are seen washing the blood from armour after a battle.
The banshee is said to groom her long hair with a silver comb, thus, according to superstition, finding a comb on the ground and picking it up is extremely bad luck, because a banshee has placed it there to trap a mortal into death.
The story of the banshee is best encapsulated in John Todhunter’s evocative poem The Banshee (1888), which contains the verse: ‘An aged desolation, She sits by Shannon’s flowing, A mother of many children, Of children exil’d and dead, In her home, with bent head, homeless, Clasping her knees she sits, Keening! keening!’
Banshee-like spirits appear in Scottish and Welsh legend, too.
The caoineag, the ‘weeper’, can be found in the Highlands of Scotland and in the Hebrides.
According to legend, the members of Clan MacDonald heard her wailing the night before the Massacre of Glencoe (1692).
The Welsh Gwrach-y-Rhibyn, which translates to mean The Hag Of The Mist, is a similar spirit whose cry also foretells an impending death.
IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Irish Daily Mail, Embassy House, Herbert Park Lane, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. You can also fax them to 0044 1952 510906 or you can email them to charles.legge@dailymail.ie. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.