But it just so happens that I’ve heard from three people this week — all with stories about, or an interest in, Johnny Hodapp. One particularly encouraging e-mail came today, on what would have been Hoddy’s 103rd birthday.

Coincidence? Serendipity? Divine Intervention? I’m not ruling out any of them.

So I’m inspired to get on a more regular regimen of updating this site. Last week, I finished copying and preserving my grandmother’s scrapbook of old newspaper clippings that’s a wonderful trove of information about Hodapp’s career and the era in which he played.

I also got a very nice e-mail from someone who was a 10-year-old boy when he met Hoddy in the 1960s and heard stories about his career. More on that later.

And sometimes, little scraps of information seem to come out-of-the-blue, almost as whispers from long-dead contemporaries.

Here’s one: An obituary in the Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum on Wednesday recaps the life of Jane F. Smith — who had an intriguing connection to Hodapp:

Jane’s late husband, Hugh, who preceded her in death in 1980, was a roommate of two Cleveland Indians, Johnny Hodapp and Clint Brown. He became close friends with many of the Cleveland Indians who won the 1948 World Series, including Kenny Keltner, Mel Harder, Bob Lemon, Al Lopez, and Lou Boudreau.

There’s got to be some fascinating stories behind that one. I’d love to hear from Hugh Smith’s family about how that came to be.

Makes you wonder how many other stories might still be out there.

He’s certainly a great story and a notable figure in and of himself. He played with Babe Ruth, won a World Series ring with the Cincinnati Reds, thrice led the league in stolen bases and was the first batter in the first game ever televised.

But the stories led me to wonder: Who died and made Werber baseball’s longevity champ.

With a little bit of programming and data from the Baseball Databank, I came up with this list of 37 players:

name	birth	death	age
Harry Wright	1835-01-10	1895-10-03	60
Dickey Pearce	1836-02-29	1908-09-18	72
Al Barker	1839-01-18	1912-09-15	73
Al Reach	1840-05-25	1928-01-14	87
Harry Berthrong	1844-01-01	1928-04-28	84
Phonney Martin	1845-08-04	1933-05-24	87
Harry Schafer	1846-08-14	1935-02-28	88
George Wright	1847-01-28	1937-08-21	90
John McKelvey	1847-08-27	1944-05-31	96
Jack Gleason	1854-07-14	1944-09-04	90
James Lehan	1856-05-14	1946-07-18	90
Henry Jones	1857-05-10	1955-05-31	98
John Leighton	1861-10-04	1956-10-31	95
Dummy Hoy	1862-05-23	1961-12-15	99
Buster Burrell	1866-12-22	1962-05-08	95
Bill Kinsler	1867-11-09	1963-08-10	95
John Grimes	1869-04-17	1964-01-17	94
John Hollison	1870-05-03	1969-08-19	99
Ralph Miller	1873-03-15	1973-05-08	100
Charlie Emig	1875-04-05	1975-10-02	100
Paddy Livingston	1880-01-14	1977-09-19	97
Sam Edmonston	1883-08-30	1979-04-12	95
Red Morgan	1883-10-06	1981-03-25	97
Jack Snyder	1886-10-06	1981-12-13	95
Carl Manda	1886-11-16	1983-03-09	96
John Daley	1887-05-25	1988-08-31	101
Bill Otis	1889-12-24	1990-12-15	100
Chet Hoff	1891-05-08	1998-09-17	107
Ike Kahdot	1899-10-22	1999-03-31	99
Karl Swanson	1900-12-17	2002-04-03	101
Ralph Erickson	1902-06-25	2002-06-27	100
Ray Hayworth	1904-01-29	2002-09-25	98
Paul Hopkins	1904-09-25	2004-01-02	99
Ray Cunningham	1905-01-17	2005-07-30	100
Howdy Groskloss	1906-04-10	2006-07-15	100
Ray Berres	1907-08-31	2007-02-01	99
Billy Werber	1908-06-20	Alive	100

A few interesting tidbits:

• There are two brothers, Harry and George Wright.
• There are two Hall of Famers on the list: The Wright brothers.
• If you’ve never heard of most of these guys, you’re not alone. Four played in only one major league game. Seven more played in fewer than 10 games.
• Oldest former major leaguer ever: Chet Hoff, who played in the American League from 1911 to 1915 and died in 1998 at the age of 107.

Obviously, this list does not include players whose dates of birth or death are not known. As of 2006, there were 300 “missing” players — presumed dead — whose dates of death are not known, according to SABR’s Biographical Research Committee. There were 600 more players whose dates of birth were not known.

Though it appeared 20 years before I was born, I think it sums up the feeling Cincinnatians have long held about the first game of the baseball season: Opening at home isn’t just a tradition — it’s our birthright as fans of baseball’s first professional team. As John Erardi and Greg Rhodes wrote in Opening Day: Celebrating Cincinnati’s Baseball Holiday:

No other major league baseball team is granted the privilege of opening at home except the Cincinnati Reds. This is a custom of scheduling that Reds fans believe is probably found somewhere in he U.S. Constitution, or at the very least, in the hallowed rules of Major League Baseball.

Unfortunately, Erardi and Rhodes then go about debunking all of the myths surrounding the Reds’ entitlement to the home opener.

It was even widely believed that the Reds were somehow guaranteed to play the first game of the year — hence the first pitch of the Reds home opener would also be the first pitch of the baseball season.

That tradition — if it ever really was one — came crashing down on Opening Day 1985, when two American League games started before the Reds could get off a first pitch. Reds fans were outraged.

This year, the Reds didn’t open on the same day or the same week — or even the same continent — as the major league opener. (The Red Sox and Athletics played a two-game set in Japan last week.) And the North American opener took place Sunday night in Washington, where the Nationals hosted the Braves. On ESPN, Jon Miller and Joe Morgan made a super-big deal about that game being the “Presidential Opener” because George W. Bush threw out the first pitch. (The Reds had Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune.)

But there’s still something special about Opening Day in Cincinnati: The parade, the pageantry, the sellout crowds, the unofficial city holiday.

Roll out the Red carpet!

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