Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,847
By This is the grave of George Wright and his son Beals Wright.
Born in 1847 in Yonkers, New York, George Wright grew up in the world of cricket. His father was a big purveyor of that sport in America and ran a club in Hoboken. But in the United States, cricket never really gained much ground. The cricket field attracted early baseball teams by the 1850s. George’s older brother Harry got super into baseball. The Civil War got in the way of his burgeoning career. But after the war, he put together the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings, the first truly professional team in the nation and he played center field. George was twelve years younger and so truly grew up with the game. He was on some semipro teams, also playing some cricket. And he was really good. So when Harry went to Cincinnati, he brought George with him, playing mostly shortstop.
By the time Wright was in his early 20s, he was one of the best players in the new game. Harry left Cincinnati in 1871 to start the Boston Red Stockings and George went with him there too. He didn’t play much that year, but he was a good solid player in 1872 and through the rest of that decade, was a good if not great player. He led the league in at-bats four times and triples once, when he hit fifteen of them in 1874. This was in the National Association. In 1876, he was the first batter in the first game in the history of the National League, as the Boston Reds moved to the new league. He grounded out.
In 1878, the Providence Grays hired Wright to be a player and manager. He didn’t have a very good year at the plate, but he managed the team to the pennant and remains the only manager in history to win the pennant in his only season as manager. He didn’t stay in Providence because he had other business interests, particularly a sporting goods enterprise, that he wanted to pay more attention to and which certainly paid better than early baseball. He stopped playing at the end of the 1882 season and had a good overall career. According to Baseball Reference’s WAR stat, his best year was in 1879 when he was worth 4.3 WAR, hitting .276/299/374, with 15 doubles and 10 triples. Of course it’s a bit hard to really measure 19th century baseball statistics with any kind of accuracy, but we will assume this is more or less accurate in evaluating Wright’s season. He presently ranks, according to Baseball Reference’s JAWS stat, as the 109th best shortstop of all time, which places him right around Michael Young, Erick Aybar, and Jack Wilson among modern players. So a pretty OK player.
After that 1882 season, Wright went back to cricket and became one of the best players in the country over the next decade. He also was a very early proponent of golf in the United States. Supposedly, in 1886, he acquired the first set of modern golf clubs in the United States. Even if that’s not quite accurate, it still demonstrates his early love of that new import. His sporting goods company, Wright & Ditson, did became a major American seller of golf clubs and other equipment. He became wealthy and donated the land for what is today the George Wright Golf Course in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Boston.
Later, Wright was on the commission the spuriously decided that baseball was invented by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown; Wright probably did absolutely no work on that committee. He went with the Olympic team to Stockholm in 1912 to demonstrate baseball to Europeans, with Jim Thorpe helping him. It did not stick in Europe, unfortunately.
In 1937, Wright was elected to the still new Hall of Fame, which he had a role in establishing. He had a stroke shortly after that and died, at the age of 90.
Wright was survived by family, including his son Beals, also buried here.
Beals Wright was born in Boston in 1879. He and his brother Irving both became dominant tennis players of the early 20th century. George was interested in tennis too and he managed the tennis team that Beals was on in 1899 that won the Delmonte Tennis Championship in Monterey, California. Tennis was another new sport import that George was behind. Beals was an Olympian in 1904 and won two golds, in singles and doubles. This was long before the modern tennis circuit was established (which it should be known is under some attack now from players for being too large and unwieldy, which is unquestionably true). So Beals doesn’t have all the majors titles that we would usually use to measure a champion. But he did win the 1905 U.S. National Championship over the defending champion Holcombe Ward. But he lost the other three times he was in the finals of that tournament. He and Ward were three time doubles champions of that tournament as well, from 1904-06. He was the first American to reach the finals of Wimbledon, in 1910. He lost but still, an important landmark for American tennis.
Beals Wright died in 1961. He was 81 years old.
George and Beals Wright are buried in Holyhood Cemetery, Brookline, Massachusetts.
\If you would like this series to visit other shortstops, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Roy McMillan, who ranks 107th on the Baseball Reference JAWS list, and who played for the Reds in the 50s and then the Braves and Mets for most of the 60s, is in Bonham, Texas. Frankie Crosetti, the Yankees shortstop of the 30s and 40s who ranks 114th all time, is in Colma, California. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.
Also, hello Opening Day!