the disappearance of ray wilson

I’ve found a clue about the fate of 1900s first baseman Ray Wilson, who was said in 1917 to have died of “insanity” sometime in the preceding decade.  Just today I ran across the following two notes in the Indianapolis Freeman from a few years earlier (July 30, 1910):

“Baseball fans and players were very sorry to hear of the death of Sy Hayman, the big pitcher for the Philadelphia Giants.  He was run over while on his way to play a game.  Hayman was one of those big, jolly fellows and always kept the bleachers in an uproar when pitching a game of ball.”

“Ray Wilson, the manager of the Philadelphia Giants, who in his heyday was the best first sacker in the game, has become somewhat demented, we learn, since the tragic death of Hayman.”

In Riley (p. 371) there is an entry for Charles “Bugs” Hayman, a.k.a. Heyman, a pitcher/first baseman who supposedly played for the Philadelphia Giants in 1909, then reappeared in 1916.  I would guess that Sy Hayman is the 1909 player, and that the 1916 guy was someone else.

Two weeks later (Freeman, August 13, 1910), there is this note:

“Baseball players and fans all over the country read with regret the sad disappearance of Ray Wilson, who is styled the colored Hans Wagner.  Ray at one time was the king of first basemen, and played at one time with Handon’s Baltimore League team, and lately has been manager of the Philadelphia Giants.”

(I don’t know what “Handon’s Baltimore League team” refers to, unless it is a garbled—and wildly inaccurate—reference to Hanlon’s Baltimore Orioles.)

Comments

[Bill Mullins]

"Ball Player Deranged." _The Tyrone [PA] Herald, 8/11/1910, p. 4 col 3.

"The railroad police have learned that Ray Wilson, manager and captain and first baseman for the Philadelphia Giants, who was arrested in Tyrone recently after insisting on going on to Harrisburg without paying his fare was recently struck on hte head by a baseball, and may be temporarily deranged, this accounting for his strange actions on the train. The case is being investigated and, if this is found to be the case, he will likely not be prosecuted, but sent to his home in Philadelphia. Wilson was taken from the train at the local station by Officers Barr and Giles and locked in the city prison."