Profile America: Baseball Fatality

(from press release)

The U. S. Census Bureau’s Profile America feature for Monday, August 17, 2009:

Some sports are known to be more dangerous than others — there have been a number of drivers killed in various car races, and many high school football players have died, either from heat stroke or injuries during games and practice. But there have been only two game-related deaths in major league baseball.

The first happened on opening day in 1909, when Philadelphia Athletics catcher Michael Riley “Doc” Powers crashed into a wall chasing a foul pop-up, suffering internal injuries. He died two weeks later.

The second occurred on this day in 1920, when popular Cleveland Indian shortstop Ray Chapman was hit on the head by a pitch from New York Yankee Carl Mays, dying the next day. In 1920, just over 9 million fans went through the turnstiles of major league baseball parks. Now, attendance is nearly 81 million a year.

You can listen to the broadcast here.

Profile America is a daily, 60-second public service feature that uses interesting vignettes from key events, observances or commemorations for that day to highlight information collected by the U. S. Census Bureau.