Charlie Dexter

Charles Dana Dexter

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 7", Weight 155 lb.
• School University of the South
• Debut April 17, 1896
• Final Game September 27, 1903
• Born June 15, 1876 in Evansville, IN USA
• Died June 9, 1934 in Cedar Rapids, IA USA

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Biographical Information

Charlie Dexter is the only major leaguer to have come from the University of the South (through 2006), where he attended in 1894. In 1895, he was a society and drama editor at an Evansville, IN newspaper in the off-season. By age 20 in 1896, Dexter was playing for the Louisville Colonels as the starting catcher. After that season, he mostly played outfield. He was two years younger than Honus Wagner, who came up as a rookie the following year in 1897. Wagner and Fred Clarke and other Colonels players eventually ended up on the Pittsburgh Pirates when the Louisville franchise folded, but Dexter was traded to the Chicago Orphans in December 1899.

Frank Selee became manager for the Orphans in 1902, and Dexter was traded in midseason to the Boston Beaneaters, where he closed out his major league career at age 27 in 1903. In addition to his playing career, he umpired three National League games in 1896 and 1897.

In 1906 he was with the Des Moines Champions, playing first base and hitting .333 for a team that won 97 games. One of the star pitchers for the team was a young hurler named Ed Cicotte. In 1909 he played, apparently as a backup, for the Minneapolis Millers.

He is the only player in Major League History to play more than 300 career games and play at least ten percent of his games at each of the five infield positions. Adding to this status is the fact that we can include center field and right field into the mix. So he statistically unique in this regard as a true utility player.

He is in the Evansville Sports Hall of Fame.

Iroquois Theatre fire

On December 30, 1903, Dexter and John Houseman were attending a show at the Iroquois Theatre in Chicago, IL when a light malfunctioned and a curtain caught on fire, causing the whole place to go up in flames. Dexter and Houseman helped to break a lock on a door and helped a good number of people escape. The fire was the most fatal event in American history to occur in one building before the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. and through 2024, remains the worst theater fire in the country, claiming the lives of 602 people.

Death

Dexter committed suicide with a revolver at at the Pullman Hotel in Cedar Rapids, IA [1].

See 1903 Photograph of Charlie Dexter with the Beaneaters.

Related Sites

• Baseball History Daily story involving Charlie Dexter
• Baseball History Daily story on Charlie Dexter
• Find-A-Grave Memorial for Charlie Dexter

This manager's article is missing a managerial chart. To make this person's article more complete, one should be added.