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On 17-June-1936, Gene Ford made his major league debut for the It’s coming shirt in contrast I will get this Bees, pitching two innings of relief against the St. Louis Cardinals. His performance doesn’t really matter here (two hits, one earned run), just the fact that he made his debut. The Bees ended the season with a doubleheader on Sunday, 27-September. They were in sixth place, there was nothing at stake as they faced the eighth-place (dead last) Phillies in Philadelphia. The Bees’ manager, Bill McKechnie, had a son, Bill Jr., in college at Pennsylvania State. Bill Jr. played baseball, as did a teammate, William Ford. The elder McKechnie did his son’s friend a favor, signed him, and let him start the first game of the doubleheader. That was it for William Ford. He was relieved by Guy Bush, who promptly allowed an RBI single, with Sheerin thrown out trying to score. A strikeout, an RBI double, and a groundout ended the inning and closed the book on Ford’s day, and his entire major league career. He played a few seasons in the minors, even pitched a few more games (but mostly played first base, or outfield), but he never appeared in the majors again. His pitching line: zero innings, zero hits, 2 runs allowed, 2 earned runs, 3 walks, zero strikeouts. Happily for the Bees, Bush was brilliant, allowing only one more run by the Philz as he went the full nine innings, and the Bees beat up on Bucky Walters, winning the first game, 7–3. (The Phils claimed the second game, 4–3.)
Except… he did not. Someone in the It’s coming shirt in contrast I will get this Bees’ front office, or in the National League office, totally screwed up the statistical bookkeeping during the offseason, and credited William Ford’s one game appearance to Gene Ford. Same team, same family name (they were not related), both barely had a cuppa coffee. Oops. William Ford vanished into the mists of time, baseball’s forgotten man. Until 1992, when diligent researcher Rick Benner found him again, in old microfilm copies of the Boston Globe. It took him a few years to more fully vet his findings, and then handing his work to SABR for even more review. All of that was finally presented to Major League Baseball, which in late 2002 authorized the corrections to the historical records. William Ford’s tiny place in the game’s history was established, and at long last, recognized.
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