1892-1946
Second baseman
Alamance County
Full Name: Luther Lane Suart
Born: May 23, 1892 Died: June 15, 1947, Winston-Salem, NC
Education: Greensboro High School; Guilford College, Greensboro, NC
Bats: Right Throws: Right Height and Weight: 5-8, 165
Team and Year: St. Louis Browns, 1921Career SummaryG AB H R RBI HR BA. OBP. SLG. WAR
3 3 1 2 2 1 .333 .333 1.333 0.1
It was the ninth inning of laugher when Luke Stuart, a quiet Quaker with some boom in his bat, stepped up to the plate on that August day in 1921 and made history. Unfortunately, more than 70 years would pass before anyone knew it.
Luther Lane Stuart was born on a farm in western Alamance County. His parents, Patrick and Mary, moved with their 10 children to adjoining Guilford County, where Luke starred on the baseball and basketball teams at Greensboro High School. At nearby Guilford College, he played under Charles “Chick” Doak, who began the process of turning the small, private Quaker school into a baseball powerhouse.1 Led by Stuart, who hit .415, and pitcher Ernie Shore, the 1911 squad went 13-1-1 and laid claim to the state’s mythical collegiate title. The Fighting Quakers, with Doak at the helm, were nearly as good the following season, winning 11 games while losing four.
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My book, The Tar Heel Boys of Summer: North Carolina’s Major League Ballplayers, will be published later this year. It will feature 34 biographical profiles and summaries of the more than 500 state natives who played in major-league baseball. I’ll post here some profiles that didn’t make into the book.
Stuart played five years in the low minors after graduating in 1913, establishing himself as a power-hitting infielder. His career was interrupted when the Army drafted him at the end of the 1917 season. Probably to respect his Quaker pacifism, it assigned him to a medical unit, and Stuart spent the following year attending the wounded on the battlefields of Belgium as World War I ground to an end.
He picked up his baseball career when he returned, first in Richmond, Virginia, and then in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where his combined 17 home runs attracted the attention of the St. Louis Browns. They needed help at second base after their starter, Joe Gedeon, was banished from baseball for his fringe role in the Black Sox scandal.2 Stuart joined the Browns in late July 1921 and appeared in a game as late-inning replacement before manager Lee Fohl sent him in to pinch hit on August 8 against the Senators at Griffith Stadium in Washington. The Browns were down 16-3 when Stuart dug in for his first at bat as a big leaguer. Glaring back at him from the mound was none other than Walter Johnson, the Big Train. Welcome, indeed, kid.
Luke Stuart led his Guilford College team in 1911.
With Marty McManus on first after walking, Stuart probably took a deep breath to steady himself and then, according to a newspaper account, laced “a vicious liner which carried to the limits in left field for the circuit.” The ball didn’t make it out but did elude outfielder Bing Miller long enough to allow McManus and Stuart to round the bases. The final score was 16-5.
Stuart become the first player in the American League to homer in his first plate appearance, but no one took notice. None of the 2,000 or so spectators in the ballpark that day knew it. Neither did any of the sportswriters reporting on the game. In fact, the one for the Washington Post even misspelled his name as “Stewart.”
The unknown record holder appeared in a game the next day before being shipped back to Class A Tulsa, where Stuart became a feared power hitter. He slugged 69 homer runs over the next four seasons while hitting better than .300 each year.
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Four years after Stuart retired in 1925, Earl Averill, the sensational rookie phenom for the Cleveland Indians, hit a home run in his first at bat and erroneously entered the record book.
Stuart scouted for the New York Yankees for a time, but by 1930 he was living in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, with his second wife, Emma. They had no children. He sold real estate and promoted minor-league baseball in the city.
A janitor reporting to work early on June 15, 1947, found Luke Stuart slumped in his chair at his real-estate office. His wrists were slashed and he had been shot in the heart. A pistol and a note to his brother were found near the body. He had been sick for more than a year. “After the past week, I feel sure that I have cancer,” the note began, “and after seeing my father suffer as he did, I don’t think it is worth the suffering, so I hope this is the end.” He asked for a simple funeral with no flowers. “Goodbye,” he wrote. “Good luck and God bless all of you.”
He was resurrected from obscurity 40 years later when researchers for the Society of American Baseball Research discovered that he had preceded Averill to the record. The Sporting News, then baseball’s bible,made it official in the mid-1990s when it listed Luke Stuart’s inside-the-park homer in its record book.
Doak, a Guilford County native, was a five-sport athlete at Guilford College who played 11 seasons for the school’s baseball team. Yes, eligibility rules were obviously different back then. He was there so long, in fact, that one of the local newspapers started referring to him as “Grandfather Doak.” After getting his degree in 1911, Doak played nine years for minor-league teams in Greensboro and Charlotte, North Carolina. In the spring from 1912-14, he coached at Guilford, building a program that sent eight players to the major leagues through the 1920s, including Hall of Fame catcher Rick Ferrell. Doak then coached at the University of North Carolina and at Duke University before becoming the head coach of the N.C. State University varsity squad in 1924. He won two conference championships during his 15 years at State and wrote a book about coaching. He died in 1956. State’s baseball field is named in his honor. He was Inducted into the Guilford College Hall of Fame in 1971.
Gedeon bet on the Cincinnati Reds to beat the Chicago White Sox in the 1919 World Series. He was at a meeting with gamblers when they discussed a plot to throw the series and won the equivalent of about $17,000 when the heavily favored Sox lost. Eight Sox players were accused of throwing games and banned from baseball. Gedeon was banished for knowing about the fix.
