Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,805
By This is the grave of Steve Brodie.
Born in 1869 in Warrenton, Virginia, Brodie mostly grew up in Roanoke. His father was an actor when he could get a work, and a tailor otherwise. The “S” in Brodie’s name is Scott, not Steve, but his hero was the daredevil Steve Brodie, who had jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, and so this Brodie just started going as Steve. He was a very good baseball player and signed with the Boston Beaneaters in 1890.
Brodie was a solid player from the very beginning. According to Baseball Reference’s WAR statistic, Brodie was worth 2.8 WAR in his rookie year, a solid outfielder who ended up being a pretty classic dead ball league player. He also was the first iron man of baseball. Starting in 1891, he played in 727 consecutive wins, the most in history at that point and into the twentieth century. He moved to the St. Louis Browns in 1892 and then the Baltimore Orioles in 1893. Brodie had his best years with the Orioles, particularly his 1895 season, when he was worth a career high 3.0 WAR. That year he hit .348/394/449 with 134 RBIs and 35 stolen bases.
Brodie was also kind of a weirdo. He knew Shakespeare forwards and backwards because of his father’s acting. So when he was standing out there, kind of bored, he would loudly recite the Bard. He would also talk to himself in the field. Fans found all of this amusing.
Brodie was a pretty marginal player by 1897. He played for the next few years, at replacement level, with WARs under 1 in 1897 and 98 (he was with the Pirates in these years until late 1898 when he was back with the Orioles) and 1.7 in 1899 with Baltimore. He did not play in 1900, but came back with Baltimore in 1900 where he was again OK and then he had a last season in 1902 with the Giants. He was really just fine that year, but that was it for the major leagues. He had a solid career, hitting .303/365/381 hitter with 289 stolen bases.
Brodie didn’t exactly retire though. He played in the minors through the 1910 season. He worked as a scout for the Baltimore Terrapins of the Federal League for awhile after his retirement. He coached at a few colleges–Rutgers, Princeton, and Navy. He then worked for the YMCA during World War I. The Y, which spent a lot of time in these years developing recreational programs to try and keep young men from all sorts of evil behaviors, from drinking to joining the IWW, was very concerned with the moral lives of soldiers, as was military leadership. So the Y went to France to create morally approved social programs, including a lot of organized sports. That was Brodie’s job. Better than those soldiers hooking up with French women, the horror. Later in life, he was the administrator of Municipal Stadium in Baltimore. He died in 1935, at the age of 67.
Steve Brodie is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Baltimore, Maryland.
According to Baseball Reference’s JAWS stat, Brodie is the 166th best center fielder of all time. In modern times, that puts him right around OK but not great center fielders such as Jackie Bradley, Franklin Gutierrez (an underrated Mariner!), and Dexter Fowler. If you would like this series to visit other such center fielders, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Vince DiMaggio, who ranks 158th all time, is in Fort Bragg, California and Solly Hoffman, a contemporary of Brodie who played mostly with the Cubs and ranks 173rd all time, is Bellefontaine, Missouri. Everyone else between those guys except for Brodie lives, which is vaguely interesting given how long baseball has been around. Some of the others in that group include Juan Pierre, B.J. Upton, and Angel Pagan. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.