Talk:Spike Shannon
From BR Bullpen
My wife and I nearly did not find Spike Shannon's grave. With a perfect, crisp November day creating ideal conditions for grave hunting, we were in heaven at this cemetery which is situated in a tidy older neighborhood on the south side of Minneapolis. St. Mary's has the well-attended appearance of a small urban graveyard, and the process of searching for a grave is made easier with the tall wooden stakes placed within most of the lots, allowing us to identify our desired location easily.
The grave of William Porter "Spike" Shannon would be found in Lot 40, Block 13, according to the secretary, who I had spoken with by phone. Driving slowly, we found the section easily (they are also clearly marked), located in the southeastern corner of the cemetery, but the block numbers were not marked here. Owing to the lengthwise orientation of the section, the task of searching for a grave in which the block number is not known became a hiking adventure. The fact that this was an older section of the cemetery meant that many of the flat, ground-level grave markers were partially covered by sod, and in many cases were rendered unreadable. Lawn debris covered them as well, and the only tool we'd had the forethought to bring along was a plastic ice scraper which proved invaluable in our attempts to identify the many markers we uncovered in our trial-and-error misadventure. It was looking a lot like an exercise in futility.
Using my wife's cell phone, I called the secretary to ask which identifiable gravestones marked Block 13. Using this information, we could narrow our search, but to no avail. The grave simply was not where it was supposed to be. I told my wife we should call off this farce and started heading for the car. She had a feeling we'd find the stone, and was in the process of uncovering a flat slab of granite where it appeared no granite would be found. The years had allowed the sod to creep over it, making it literally invisible. With enough of the dirt and grass removed, she could read the name "PIKE". She showed me and we decided enough was enough. But it was a good feeling to get our hands a little dirty in the process. I'd simply have to write a letter to the cemetery office and let them know the grave was not there. Someone must have made a mistake; I'd encountered a few clerical errors preparing for this hunt.
At the car I told my wife I'd been really looking forward to finding ol' Spike's grave. Apart from his unique nickname, the outfielder starred with the St. Paul Saints in the early American Association, hitting .344 with 471 at-bats and stole 41 bases in 1902. He repeated his base-stealing prowess the following season by replicating his 41 steals, hitting .308 and leading the league in runs scored with 132. The 1904 season he joined the St. Louis Cardinals, becoming a big leaguer at the age of 26. With 34 swipes with St. Louis, Shannon proved his cunning on the base paths, likely the origin of his moniker.
"Spike?" She asked me, incredulously. "As in PIKE?"
We looked at each other and made a veritable dash for the grave, ripping out the partially frozen sod bare-handed to expose the whole stone. Eureka!! The name "Shannon" appeared. We'd found Spike Shannon's grave. It was like digging for buried treasure.
After a putting the camera to use, I made my way back to the car with gleefully muddied paws and again took the cell phone in hand to let the secretary know of our good fortune. "We found Shannon's grave," I told her, barely able to contain myself, "but we did leave a few rather large chunks of broken sod here which you'll have to tell your maintenance man to come get." I wanted the cemetery to restore the marker, but she let me know they would only do this for a fee. So I'll be returning to St. Mary's in the spring with spade and broom to give Spike's final earthly statement the sparkle it deserves.
Shannon returned to the American Association after five successful seasons in the majors. As a workhorse with the Kansas City Blues in 1909 Shannon's performance was a shadow of its earlier majesty, hitting .210 in 162 games/601 at-bats. The following year he picked things up considerably, hitting .246 in 169 games with a weighty 620 at-bats. All told in his American Association career, he appeared in 638 games, with 2,389 at bats, scoring 437 runs with 641 hits. Shannon's 57 doubles and 25 triples further testify to his fleet feet, underscored by 156 stolen bases. The garden fielder's .268 career batting average belied a solid career in pro ball.
If you would like to view a photo of Shannon's grave, or the graves of other ball players buried in the Minneapolis area, please email me at pureout@msn.com and I will share them with you through the Kodak Photosharing website they are posted on.
Rex Hamann The American Association Almanac www.americanassociationalmanac.com
