When the Irish ruled MLB

In my bedside Ninth Edition (1993) of the MacMillan Baseball Encyclopedia, 73 position players are listed whose surnames start with O'. That pretty much makes them Irish. (O'Briens comprise the largest single group, if you care.) Of those, 63 played before 1960. (Danny O'Connell retired in 1962 but I still didn't count him as having played before 1960. Just a technical thing, you know?) You could look it up. But the fact is, St. Patrick's Day is no longer an excuse for half the players in Spring Training to go missing on March 17.

The Irish once ruled MLB. It was the typical story--a way out of the slums and also out of a really nasty job of some sort. It was a different game in those days, a lot dirtier, the fight to keep one's job much more desperate than today, when most third-year players have more money than they'll ever need for the rest of their lives.

So today, be sure to raise a glass to those scrappy, rascally Irish ballplayers of yesteryear. Maybe you'll even run into Billy O'Dell or Johnny O'Brien, Paul O'Neill or Pete O'Brien, Kid O'Hara or Hustlin Dan O'Leary on your rounds today. Tip o' the hat to 'em, by god!