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Ben Egan
“Yes, I knew him. He had huge hands with crooked fingers. He was a catcher, you know.”
“Yes, I knew Ben. A great guy, everyone liked him. He was everybody’s friend. He often stopped by our house to talk with dad. I delivered his paper, later his mail.”
“He was a real practical joker. Wow! He worked on the second floor. He’d yell out the window at someone he knew walking on the sidewalk directly below. ‘Hey Joe,’ he might say. And Joe would look up and be met in the face by a bucket of water.”
Ben Egan’s career and reputation are little known and remain part mystery, part legend. Though Egan was predominantly a backup catcher during his four major-league seasons, he was an important cog for many of the best minor-league teams in baseball history. He was also an influential teammate and mentor during the early careers of three Hall of Fame pitchers, Lefty Grove, Stan Coveleski, and Babe Ruth. Egan spent about 22 years in professional baseball as a player, coach, and manager. When his professional coaching career ended in 1928 with the International League Baltimore Orioles at the age of 45, he continued managing and coaching for the next 15 years in his hometown.
Best known for catching Babe Ruth’s first professional game, a 6-0, six-hit shutout of Buffalo on April 22, 1914, Ben Egan was a backup major-league catcher, journeyman minor leaguer, captain, coach, manager, prankster, and because of his work ethic, hustle and playful enthusiasm, a fan favorite–a blue collar guy with a heart of gold from the Silver City. He may not have made direct impact on the big stage, but as Joe Stadtmiller of Sherrill, an old coach himself, wrote in a novel published in 2009, individual success isn’t all that important a legacy, “what matters most is the process itself, the impact we have on those we touch along the way.” - SABR
This was one of the A's for The_Game, by request. Some of the pictures when he was younger show a wider face but weren't good ones for a facegen, so I didn't make him too gaunt even though I probably used an older picture of him than his A's days.
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