Quote:
Originally Posted by LansdowneSt
“The Man with the Peculiar Name” — as the Plain Dealer game story referred to Gouzzie. - SABR
Crafted the facegen as best I could from the lone photo. I think Monessen could take'em. As a glove first man, he rates as a middling 2B in OOTP - I hope his rep as a grinder is true if he's to have a chance versus those east of the Monongahela.
Saved as the MLB Historic ID as he had no bRef or in-game Minors code
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Really fantastic work Landsdowne - you've done one of my favorite one-game wonders justice with this facegen. I reckon ol' Claude could take Moonlight Graham any day - even if ol' Archie did look like Burt Lancaster.
Incidentally, for those of you who were wondering, due to a typographical error in the AP wire report of the game, Claude's name was misspelled as "Gonzzie" - a error that was picked up by most newspapers, including the St. Louis ones. Only the Cleveland paper, who presumably actually had a person at the game, spelled it correctly. As a result, for many years our man was listed as "Claude Gonzzie" in the Macmillan Encyclopedia before the record was straightened.
Also, presumably because of the sentence in the same AP report calling him a "second baseman from Niles, Ohio", Claude's birthplace was also listed in Big Mac and elsewhere as being from Niles, even though that was just where he was living and playing semi-pro ball at the time. It wasn't for more than seven decades, when SABR folks started digging into his past and actually made contact with his brother, who was 84 at the time, that they realised Claude was born in France. This, of course, made him the first French-born major leaguer, beating Bruce Bochy and others by a long while.
Sadly, a little more than three years after his one game for the Browns, Claude contracted tuberculosis. He moved to Denver, hoping the mountain air would help things. It did for a while, but by 1907, he had passed away. Still, he lived in Denver long enough to be entered in the city directory for that year. The occupation he listed? Baseball player.
We should all be so lucky