Wiman Andrus

William Wiman Andrus

• Bats Unknown, Throws Unknown
• Height 5' 6", Weight 155 lb.
• School Trinity College

• Born October 14, 1858 in Orono, ON CAN
• Died June 17, 1935 in Miles City, MT USA

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Biographical Information

"Andrus is hitting and playing short second to none . . ." - Sporting Life's Hamilton, ON correspondent, about Andrus' play for Hamilton, in the Sept. 9, 1885 issue

Wiman Andrus, who was born in Canada, had a professional baseball career mostly with the U.S.'s neighbor to the North. In the majors, he was listed for a time with playing one game at third base for the Providence Grays in 1885, but that has since been corrected. In the minors, he played for the Hamilton Clippers in Canada during three seasons, for Minneapolis (two seasons), and Buffalo (two seasons), as well as Portland, Montreal, Grand Rapids, Manchester, Jamestown and Kansas City.

According to the book Progressive Men of the State of Montana, although he was born in Canada, Andrus came from a prominent New York family. His father was in the lumber business and moved from New York to Ontario in 1845. Wiman began playing professional baseball in 1883 and used the money he earned to attend medical school at Trinity College in Toronto, ON, during the winters (Trinity is now part of the University of Toronto). He received his M.D. in 1893 and came to Montana to practice. He served two terms as mayor of Miles City, MT, a town in eastern Montana.

Serious doubt was expressed about whether Andrus was actually the 1895 major league ballplayer: contemporary newspapers list the player as "Wallie Andrews", and Andrus played a game in Hamilton the day following his supposed sole major league appearance. Local papers in Hamilton do not ever mention his leaving for Providence.

A more likely candidate was Wally Andrews, who was a contemporary ballplayer from Indianapolis, IN, who briefly played in the majors in both 1884 and 1888 Louisville Eclipse and Louisville Colonels. The bulk of evidence points to his being the mystery player; in 1885, he was with the Columbus Stars of the Southern League. That team disbanded on September 7th, which would have made him available to play a major league game a week later. In fact, Andrews was listed as the player that day until a change was made in 1988, switching it to Andrus. It is now clear that the change was unwarranted and that Wiman never played in the majors.

"Andrus is not acquainted with the many peculiarities of Kansas City's right field and it will probably take him some time to get accustomed to the slope and the sun. He is a very fast man, though, and will cover plenty of ground." - Sporting Life, April 16, 1892

Further Reading

• "Misidentified Player #1", in Bill Carle, ed.: Biographical Research Committee Report, SABR, January/February 2026, p. 1.

Related Sites

• Wyman Andrus at the SABR Bio Project
• Find-A-Grave Memorial for Wiman Andrus