The Annotated This Day in Baseball History

Fair warning, this is going to be one of those entries where I start off one place and end up somewhere completely different, so head's up. Anyway, Oscar Grimes was a utility infielder for the Indians in the 40s; he later moved to the Yankees and was given a starting job at third base in 1945. Grimes could hit--he made the All-Star team--but was just a deplorable fielder, making thirty-one errors in a hundred and forty-one games.

Anyway, what really drew my attention about Grimes was his parents. Grimes was the son of Ray Grimes, a first baseman in the 20s and the nephew of Roy "Bummer" Grimes, who saw time at second base for the Giants in 1920. (None of them, incidentally, were any relation to Frank Grimes.) Ray and Roy, as you might've gathered by their similar names, were in fact twins; one of eight sets of twins to play in the Majors.

The most famous of those twins, of course, would be Jose and Ozzie Canseco; Jose is far-and-away the best twin to ever play in the big leagues, although Ray is probably second. I don't know why, maybe its something physiological, but twins--with the notable exception of Canseco (and his steroids, I suppose)--are almost entirely mediocre, or worse, players. So here we are, a long way from Oscar Grimes, but hey, I warned you.

# posted by Richard Barbieri @ 10:00 AM