Claiming a Famous Baseball Relative

todeen · #1 02-22-2025, 11:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tireolddawg

�son, that man was married to Marilyn Monroe.�

I think we all wish we'd been married to her. There are lots of pics with less clothes, but fully dressed, what a beautiful woman. Thanks for improving this thread 100%.

Every thread needs a card...

Sent from my SM-S926U using Tapatalk

clydepepper · #2 02-23-2025, 12:00 AM

My cousin once had a dust up with Joltin' Joe:

1941 WS Photo - Whitlow v. JoeD a.jpg

BillyCoxDodgers3B · #3 02-23-2025, 06:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by todeen

I think we all wish we'd been married to her. There are lots of pics with less clothes, but fully dressed, what a beautiful woman. Thanks for improving this thread 100%.

Sent from my SM-S926U using Tapatalk

From what I've read, I'm not so sure, at least towards the end. Her bathing routine, or lack thereof, would have turned a lot of people away, apparently. She favored covering herself in perfume instead of stepping into a shower.

Never understood the world's fascination with her insofar as her acting and apparent beauty are concerned. How she figured into the history of her era? OK, that can't be denied. Before she undertook the blonde Marilyn facade that made her famous, she really was just a nice-looking girl next door type. Wish she would have stuck to that, but then we'd never have her particular chunk of history.

Balticfox · #4 02-23-2025, 11:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BillyCoxDodgers3B

Never understood the world's fascination with her insofar as her acting and apparent beauty are concerned. How she figured into the history of her era? OK, that can't be denied. Before she undertook the blonde Marilyn facade that made her famous, she really was just a nice-looking girl next door type. Wish she would have stuck to that, but then we'd never have her particular chunk of history.

Brigitte Bardot for me!

sbfinley · #5 02-23-2025, 12:30 PM

The title of this thread reminded me of an article on genealogy I read awhile back. Essentially there is a period of time, continentally about 1,000 years, where if you trace back to any random person living at that time there is a 80% chance you are descended from that person in some manner. The basis is that with every generation your number of ancestors doubles but the number of actual ancestors remains static and eventually they reach an equilibrium. So if you are of European decent you can take any living person from roughly 1,000 years ago (Charlemagne, Eric the Red, William I, or any random person slain in the Norman conquest) and by math there is an 80% chance you can trace - should such records exist - your genealogy back to find that person in your family tree.

Should that be true it�s interesting to me that my descendants a millennium from now could read about Babe Ruth, Tom Seaver, Bryce Harper, and Hawk Tuah Girl and probably be distantly related to most of them.

z28jd · #6 02-23-2025, 03:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sbfinley

The title of this thread reminded me of an article on genealogy I read awhile back. Essentially there is a period of time, continentally about 1,000 years, where if you trace back to any random person living at that time there is a 80% chance you are descended from that person in some manner. The basis is that with every generation your number of ancestors doubles but the number of actual ancestors remains static and eventually they reach an equilibrium. So if you are of European decent you can take any living person from roughly 1,000 years ago (Charlemagne, Eric the Red, William I, or any random person slain in the Norman conquest) and by math there is an 80% chance you can trace - should such records exist - your genealogy back to find that person in your family tree.

Should that be true it�s interesting to me that my descendants a millennium from now could read about Babe Ruth, Tom Seaver, Bryce Harper, and Hawk Tuah Girl and probably be distantly related to most of them.

I was able to trace many lines back to William the Conqueror, so I looked it up and it was estimated that 50% of people in England are related to him, but actually being able to trace roots that far puts you in a group much smaller. I think the number was 4%. However, if you go back 11 generations earlier, they say approximately 98% of people with European heritage would be related to Charlemange. That's based on the amount of kids he had and the small population back then.

I didn't do any of this tracing work other than finding my great-grandmother on the genealogy site. She was the only one I found of my eight great-grandparents who had anything more than three generations earlier on their tree.

What's funny is that my other great-grandparent on that side is actually a Rockefeller (cousin of the rich family, though I do have a great-uncle named John D Rockefeller), so I figured he would have a tree for sure on the site I'm using. He barely does. Then I just happened to click her side and it's huge. So I have huge lines of royalty mixing with Rockefeller blood and my grandmother (their child) married a poor first-generation US Irishman, had nine kids and lived dirt poor.

Finding numerous kings was cool, but they are all so far back. I tried to find relatives who were within the tenth great-grandparents range. All of them are cousins, not direct ancestors, but besides Grover Cleveland Alexander, I found Amelia Earhart, Benjamin Harrison (not his Presidential grandfather), Franklin Pierce, John Pemberton (Coca-Cola inventor) and James Fenimore Cooper, which came in on his grandmother's side, so I didn't get the founder of Cooperstown (he was married at the time to my relative, so maybe I can count it, even though she's never given any credit).

Those results are with me checking 500+ famous people who had family trees available, including many many baseball players. As you can see, I'm doing much better with non-baseball finds.

akleinb611 · #7 02-23-2025, 03:40 PM

Former MLB pitcher Bob Tufts (Giants, Royals 1981-83) married my second cousin Suzanne. He never got a proper chance to establish himself in the bigs, and retired soon after KC traded him into the Reds minor league system. He told me some not flattering stories about manager Frank Robinson, and he adored manager Dick Howser. He was managed in the minors by Rocky Bridges, and he told me that Bridges was a sweet guy, but was seriously nuts.

Bob passed away too young a few years ago; he may have married into my family, but he was probably the nicest guy I've ever known in my family.

ASF123 · #8 02-23-2025, 04:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by akleinb611

Former MLB pitcher Bob Tufts (Giants, Royals 1981-83) married my second cousin Suzanne. He never got a proper chance to establish himself in the bigs, and retired soon after KC traded him into the Reds minor league system. He told me some not flattering stories about manager Frank Robinson, and he adored manager Dick Howser. He was managed in the minors by Rocky Bridges, and he told me that Bridges was a sweet guy, but was seriously nuts.

Bob passed away too young a few years ago; he may have married into my family, but he was probably the nicest guy I've ever known in my family.

I was a regular poster in the now-defunct Baseball Think Factory forum. Bob posted there from time to time as well. Came across as a really nice guy, and of course it was great to have the perspective of a former Major Leaguer. We were all saddened by his health struggles and untimely passing.

Kevin · #9 02-23-2025, 09:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sbfinley

The title of this thread reminded me of an article on genealogy I read awhile back. Essentially there is a period of time, continentally about 1,000 years, where if you trace back to any random person living at that time there is a 80% chance you are descended from that person in some manner. The basis is that with every generation your number of ancestors doubles but the number of actual ancestors remains static and eventually they reach an equilibrium. So if you are of European decent you can take any living person from roughly 1,000 years ago (Charlemagne, Eric the Red, William I, or any random person slain in the Norman conquest) and by math there is an 80% chance you can trace - should such records exist - your genealogy back to find that person in your family tree.

Should that be true it�s interesting to me that my descendants a millennium from now could read about Babe Ruth, Tom Seaver, Bryce Harper, and Hawk Tuah Girl and probably be distantly related to most of them.

I believe it was a RadioLab episode where the host stated if you go back to 700 AD, we are all related.

Casey2296 · #10 02-23-2025, 09:58 PM

-
I once got into a drinking contest with Don Larsen when I was a kid.

He Won...

JollyElm · #11 02-23-2025, 11:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Casey2296

-
I once got into a drinking contest with Don Larsen when I was a kid.

He Won...

Not really a surprise, though. Even the most avid 9 year old chugging kid would have a tough time matching up against an experienced adult drinker.

Hankphenom · #12 02-24-2025, 10:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Casey2296

-I once got into a drinking contest with Don Larsen when I was a kid. He Won...

Keating and I had dinner with Larsen in Chicago when he was an old guy, and he drank us under the table. We walked him, so to speak, back to his room afterwards, and we were bouncing off the walls. He lived to 90, bottled in bond, I guess!

Hankphenom · #13 02-23-2025, 04:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BillyCoxDodgers3B

From what I've read, I'm not so sure, at least towards the end. Her bathing routine, or lack thereof, would have turned a lot of people away, apparently. She favored covering herself in perfume instead of stepping into a shower. Never understood the world's fascination with her insofar as her acting and apparent beauty are concerned. How she figured into the history of her era? OK, that can't be denied. Before she undertook the blonde Marilyn facade that made her famous, she really was just a nice-looking girl next door type. Wish she would have stuck to that, but then we'd never have her particular chunk of history.

I'll try to explain her to you: Marilyn was a terrific actress across all genres. She ended up making her mark mostly in light comedy, but for dark drama in some great Film Noir check out "Don't Bother to Knock" with Richard Widmark or "Niagara" with Joseph Cotton where she more than holds her own with those Hollywood heavyweights. Her combination of beauty and overt sexuality ("Seven Year Itch," "Bus Stop," etc.) broke through a VERY conservative time to make that acceptable for generations to follow, thank God, in the way Elvis did with music. If you want to spend a couple of harrowing hours watching one of the great performances ever captured on film, check out her last one, "The Misfits," co-starring Clark Gable, Montgomery Clift, Eli Wallach, and directed by John Huston ("Treasure of Sierra Madre," etc.) I lived through her time, and I can tell you with absolute assurance that she earned her legend status 100% in her all-too-short time (36 when she died.) Oh, and she also happened to marry Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller ("Death of a Salesman.") As with the aforementioned Elvis, for a combination of ground-breaking talent and seismic cultural change that comes about rarely, there will NEVER be another Marilyn Monroe.

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