Ed Delahanty Obituary

Baseball Almanac presents the actual obituary of Ed Delahanty taken from The New York Times (July 10, 1903) and transcribed word-for-word for optimal research.

"(Joe DiMaggio) is the closest replica to Del I have ever seen. His every move is taken from the same baseball mold that cast Ed Delahanty." - Author / Historian Bill James in Historical Baseball Abstract (2002)

Ed Delahanty Obituary

Appeared in The New York Times on July 10, 1903

Ed Delahanty Obituary
DELEHANTY'S BODY FOUND.
_______________

Baseball Player Swept over Niagara
Falls—Woman's Body Also
Recovered.

  NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y., July 9.—The body of Edward Delehanty, the right fielder of the Washington baseball team of the American League, who fell from the International Bridge last Thursday night, was taken from the river at the lower Niagara gorge to-day. Relatives of Delehanty arrived here this afternoon and positively identified the body as that of the missing baseball player.

  The body of a woman thirty-five years old was also recovered at Lewiston to-day. It has not been identified.

  Delehanty's body was mangled. One leg was torn off, presumably by the propeller of the Maid of the Mist, near whose landing the body was found. The body will be shipped to Washington to-night. Delehanty's effects have been sent to his wife by the Pullman people.

  Frank Delehanty of the Syracuse team and E.J. McGuire, a brother-in-law, from Cleveland, are here investigating the death of the player. They do not believe that Delehanty committed suicide or that he had been on a spree in Detroit. In the sleeper on the Michigan Central train on the way down from Detroit, Delehanty had five drinks of whiskey says Conductor Cole, and became so obstreperous that he had to put him off the train at Bridgeburg at the Canadian end of the bridge. Cole says Delehanty had an open razor and was terrifying others in the sleeper.

  When the train stopped at Bridgeburg Cole did not deliver Delehanty up to a constable, as the Canadian police say he should have done. He simply put him off the train.

  After the train had disappeared across the bridge, Delehanty started to walk across, which is against the rules. The night watchman attempted to stop him, but Delehanty pushed the man to one side. The draw of the bridge had been opened for a boat, and the player plunged into the dark waters of the Niagara.

  Delehanty's relatives hint at foul play, but there is nothing in the case, apparently, to bear out such a theory.

Ed Delahanty Obituary



Ed Delahanty's body was found floating in the turbulent waters at the base of Niagara Falls by William LeBlond, the operator of the popular Maid of the Mist tour boat.

Baseball author / sportswriter Robert Smith (New York Times, 1903) wrote this about Ed Delahanty, "Men who met Ed Delahanty had to admit he was a handsome fellow, although there was an air about him that indicated he was a roughneck at heart and no man to temper with. He had that wide-eyed, half-smiling, ready-for-anything look that is characteristic of a certain type of Irishman. He had a towering impatience, too, and a taste for liquor and excitement. He created plenty of excitement for opponents and spectators when he laid his tremendous bat against a pitch."

Did you know that Ed's brother Frank Delahanty, also a major league player, died in a fall in 1966 at his home and at the time his brother died he told reporters, "I have some suspicion about how Ed went off that bridge. The poor fellow is dead now, and he can never tell his side of the story, but the others can tell just what they please."

     

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