Denny Sullivan (sullide02)

Dennis William Sullivan

• Bats Left, Throws Right
• Height 5' 10"
• School University of South Dakota
• High School Milbank High School
• Debut April 22, 1905
• Final Game September 2, 1909
• Born September 28, 1882 in Hillsboro, WI USA
• Died June 2, 1956 in West Los Angeles, CA USA

BR page

Biographical Information

Denny Sullivan was an outfielder four years in the Majors (1905 and 1907-1909). Sullivan was born on September 28, 1882, in Hillsboro, WI. He broke into Organized Baseball in 1902 at age 19 with Fargo in the North Dakota League. He played for Fargo (1902); Winnipeg in the Canadian League (1902); and the Minneapolis Millers in the American Association (1902-1904). He was 22 years old when he broke into the big leagues on April 22, 1905, with the Washington Senators. After a cup of coffee with Washington, he was returned to the Millers (1905-1906) and then played for the Boston Red Sox (1907-1908).

He was the regular center fielder for the Red Sox before Tris Speaker won the job late in 1908. A small left-handed hitter, Sullivan hit .245 in 1907 with just 19 extra-base hits in 144 games. In 1908, Sullivan was hitting .239 before Speaker took over in center. In September of 1908 Denny was purchased by the Cleveland Naps from the Red Sox and played with the Naps in 1908 and 1909, playing his final major league game on September 2, 1909 at age 26. He returned to the minors with the Toledo Mud Hens of the American Association in 1910.

In 1907, his best year in the majors, he had 135 hits, 73 runs, 18 doubles, 0 triples, 1 home run, 26 RBI and 16 stolen bases at (.245./315./283) in 144 games. In 1906, his best year in the minors, he had 2 home runs at .311 in 138 games. Overall in MLB, he had 221 hits, 106 runs, 25 doubles, 8 triples, 1 home run, 51 RBI and 30 stolen bases at (.239/.296/.286) in 255 games. From 1902-1906 with the Minneapolis Millers, he had 7 home runs at ~.290 in 465 games.

He became a medical doctor and was a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army and served in both World War I and World War II (BN, Grave Locator). He also coached at the University of Minnesota in 1913-1914. He died at age 73 at a Veterans Administration Hospital in Los Angeles, CA on June 2, 1956 [1] and is buried at Los Angeles National Cemetery(Section 240, Row B, Site 7) in Los Angeles [2].

Sources

Principal sources for Denny Sullivan (sullide02) include newspaper obituaries (OB), government Veteran records (VA,CM,CW), Stars & Stripes (S&S), Sporting Life (SL), The Sporting News (TSN), The Sports Encyclopedia:Baseball 2006 by David Neft & Richard Cohen (N&C), old Who's Who in Baseballs (none) (WW), old Baseball Registers (none) (BR) , old Daguerreotypes by TSN (none) (DAG), Stars&Stripes (S&S), The Baseball Necrology by Bill Lee (BN), Pat Doyle's Professional Ballplayer DataBase (PD), The Baseball Library (BL), Baseball in World War II Europe by Gary Bedingfield (GB) ; The American Association: Year-By-Year Statistics for the Baseball Minor League, 1902-1952 by Marshall D. Wright; and independent research by Walter Kephart (WK) and Frank Russo (FR) and others.

Related Sites

• Denny Sullivan at the SABR Bio Project
• Denny Sullivan at the Baseball Almanac
• Bio at Baseball Page
• Minneapolis Miller Stats
• and a full Bibliography from SABR's The Baseball Index (TBI)