Touring the Bases with…Frank Russo

Matt Sisson recently sat down with Frank Russo, Author of the book Bury My Heart at Cooperstown: Salacious, Sad, and Surreal Deaths in the History of Baseball, and creater of the website thedeadballera.com to talk baseball.

(Matt Sisson) Frank, you maintain the website thedeadballera.com , can you tell us a little about how you became interested in the subject of player deaths and what inspired you to start up the site?

(Frank Russo) Before I started the site I had actually been collecting data for years, since I was 9. The first player I ever collected info on was Eddie Plank, the Hall Of Fame lefthander for the A’s. It was actually when I visited his grave during the summer of 1994 that the seeds for both my website and the book were planted. The caretaker at the Evergreen Cemetery in Gettysburg, this rather young gentleman, showed me where he (Plank) was buried, and as he was doing so, began giving me a dissertation on his accomplishments. He suggested that I might try writing a book about him and other players. For several years I had become frustrated when it came to accruing information on the internet in regards to deceased major leaguers. It was during the summer of 1998 that I made the decision to build my own website and dedicate it to all the deceased former major leaguers.

(MS)There seems to be a lot of interesting facts and odd information on your site. How did you come about finding out so much information on the subject?

(FR) For years I would normally just write down info whenever I got the chance, collecting obits from newspapers or gleaning info from books such as encyclopedias. It was really not until I started taking research trips to the Baseball Hall of Fame in the mid and late 1990s that my research expanded into what it is today. The files at the A. Bartlett Giamatti Library are just amazing. It was there, while combing through the thousands of player files, that I was able to start collecting mass amounts of information, usually from either a Death Certificate, which I fondly call a DC, or an Obituary. You can really get a tremendous amount of data from a DC or an Obit.

(MS) In your opinion, what’s your favorite player death story to tell?

(FR) This is going to sound really cold, but the story of Gus Sandberg. He was a catcher for parts of two seasons with the Reds in the 1920s. In January of 1930, he literally blew himself up. He siphoned gas from his car and then proceeded to look inside the gas tank with a lit match to check the gas level. Poof! He went up like a Roman Candle. When I tell that story people don’t know whether to laugh out loud or shake their heads. It’s so unbelievable that you would swear that it came from one of those old Three Stooges two-reelers from back in the 1930s. Oh yeah, and after his death his body was cremated, so I guess he kind of got a head start on the process.

On a more serious note, I always try to get the truth out about Billy Martin whenever I can. To this day people still assume that Billy was the driver in the pickup truck crash that killed him on Christmas night, 1989. He wasn’t the driver, he was the passenger. This was proven by the great forensic pathologist, Dr. Michael Baden, who investigated the case.

(MS) You are the author of the book , Bury My Heart at Cooperstown: Salacious, Sad, and Surreal Deaths in the History of Baseball . Can you tell us a little about it?

(FR) The book is based on the same premise as my website, but with a lot of new and interesting material. To give you some background, I wrote the book with my friend Gene Racz, who was a sports reporter for the Home News Tribune in East Brunswick. Gene is intelligent, well rounded and an absolutely funny man. He actually did a story on me in 2002, after which we became friends. I mentioned to him that I might be interested in having him collaborate with me on writing a book. He jumped at the opportunity. Of course, he had to go on a grave hunt with me first in order to get the feel of it all. “ Bury My Heart ” was released in March of 2006 and is still one of the more popular baseball books out there, due to the style in which we wrote it. We used a combination of humor, sensitivity and hard core research to compile some really compelling and interesting stories and biographies. The book has really gained a cult following, mostly because we wrote it not just for the die hard fan or hard core researcher, but for the casual fan as well. In fact, one of the great things about the book is that you don’t have to be a baseball fan at all to enjoy it. It’s one of those books that, once you pick it up, you just can’t put it down because it is so interesting and flows so well, from story to story and chapter to chapter.

(MS) With the vast amount of information you have regarding player deaths, how did go about choosing what went into the book and what was left out?

(FR) Our original idea was to include 500 biographies, minimum. In fact, we had enough info to write as least 5 books. We really had our work cut out for us when our publisher, Triumph, told us that they wanted the book to be only 261 pages. When I first heard that I just thought to myself, “Wow, how in the hell are we ever going to pull this off?” Gene and I knew that even though we had all this material to choose from, we didn’t want to write a straight forward necrology. That would have been boring as hell. We decided to use what Gene likes to call “Restaurant Quality” material, only the best. We made sure that we included players from throughout the history of the game. In our opinion, we felt that the story of a little-known player, especially if he had an interesting life off-the field, could be just as compelling as that of someone who was well known. That is why we included players from every organized professional league, from the National Association onward. We also decided to include stories on executives and fans. Of course, writing about a deceased person is very tricky. You have to be careful that you don’t dwell on the morbid aspect of it, which some people say is impossible, and you also try not to offend people. This is where a lot of the humor in the book comes into play. (I have a really wacky and sick sense of humor, something which Gene had to pull the reigns in on quite often). We even included stories and bios dealing with sex, crime and scandal. Women really enjoy some of the more scandalous stories dealing with the male/female relationship aspect. As people read the book, they really begin to realize that ball players are nothing more than human beings playing a kids game. For the most part, they are susceptible to the same frailties and problems as the average fan.

(MS) What’s you favorite player death story that was left out of the book?

(FR) Hummmm, interesting question. There are so many that it would take an old Baseball Register to list them. I would say Don Wilson was one that I would have loved to include. He was the old Astro’s pitcher who hurled two no-hitters but died in 1975 at the age of 29. There was a lot of controversy and confusion about his death, since he was found in his car, in the garage, with the motor running. His son, who was in the house, accidentally died. His death was officially ruled a suicide, but many of his former teammates and friends stated that it had to be an accident. I would have also wanted to include Ed Delahanty, Donnie Moore and Danny Frisella, but there was just not enough room for them.

(MS) With all the things in baseball to write about, what made you choose to write about how players died?

(FR) Well, I have always had a keen interest in history and genealogy along with baseball. Combining them altogether became the perfect niche for me, pardon the pun. With the advent of the internet, information for current major league players, for the most part, has been readily available. Not so for deceased major leaguers. As a resource, my website came along and filled a void. I sometimes feel like my site is speaking for the players.

(MS) Will there be a follow up to Bury My Heart at Cooperstown: Salacious, Sad, and Surreal Deaths in the History of Baseball? And if so when can we expect it to hit the book stores?

(FR) Well I sure hope so! We are currently working on the follow up to it as we speak. I can’t say when exactly, but both Gene and I are going to work our hardest to make the follow-up bigger, better and just as entertaining as the first one.  

(MS) Your site has a section titled, Grave Photo Archives. How many of the graves have you visited yourself and what’s the furthest you’ve traveled to visit one?

(FR) I have never really kept score, but I know it is somewhere between 500 and 750. The farthest I have traveled was Florida. I got some good grave pics when I went down there 15 years ago. Unfortunately, due to my vision problems, I have not been able to get out and take pictures as much as I have wanted to. Hopefully, with a little luck, after my vision is totally restored, I will be back to doing some serious grave hunting.

(MS) Do you consider yourself to be the expert in baseball player deaths? How often are you called upon for information?

(FR) I’m not one to brag, so I will leave that for other people to decide. I am known for having a photographic memory for remembering player’s deaths, so I guess you could say that I am an expert in that area. I have always prided myself on the hard work and effort I put into my research. I have always tried to be extremely meticulous with my work, so much so that I border on being manic about it. There are a lot of great researchers out there. Two who come to mind are my buddies Bill Deane and Bill Carle. I call them, “The Two Bills.” I have a lot of respect for someone who dedicates themselves to genealogy or necrology, since they are not the easiest things in the world to research. I have to be honest though. I sometimes feel that my research does not get the credit that it deserves. That’s OK, since I truly believe that the majority of visitors to my website and the majority of the people who have purchased our book appreciate the hard work put into them.

(MS) What can thedeadballera.com readers look forward to from the site in the coming months?

(FR) Besides a ton of new obits, grave photos and player and team photos, we will be adding a lot of new audio clips to the site, including some amazingly rare interviews and baseball songs. I think when all is said and done, visitors are going to be blown away at all the new content!

I’d like to thank Frank for taking to the time to talk with me about his book and website. Be sure to take a look.