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.