Haddie Gill

Harold Edward Gill

• Bats Left, Throws Left
• Height 5' 11", Weight 165 lb.
• School College of the Holy Cross
• High School Brockton High School, Phillips Exeter Academy
• Debut August 16, 1923
• Final Game August 16, 1923
• Born January 23, 1899 in Brockton, MA USA
• Died August 1, 1932 in Brockton, MA USA

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Biographical Information

Haddie Gill pitched one inning in the major leagues for the Cincinnati Reds in 1923­, giving up 0 runs.

From a well-to-do family, he was captain of the baseball team at Exeter Academy, and later pitched for the College of the Holy Cross, where he attended from 1920-1923 at a time when it was the baseball powerhouse of New England. He went 18-1 while pitching for Holy Cross. After graduation, he signed with the Reds for $15,000, a huge bonus at the time. He mainly pitched batting practice and in exhibition games that season, except for his one inning of mop-up duty in a 7-1 loss to the New York Giants on August 16th.

His Harvard-educated brother Henry had served in the Military Intelligence Unit of the United States War Department during World War I, a job which had taken him to Egypt among other places. He worked there for a time as an assistant to the U.S. military attaché and formed some business contacts. Along with another brother, he ran an import-export business based out of Alexandria. After his one major league season, Haddie decided to move to Egypt instead of being farmed out to the minor leagues and lived there from 1924 to 1927, working with his brothers. A close contact of the family in those days was the German Rudolf Hess, the future close associate of German führer Adolf Hitler, who was also working in the import-export business in Alexandria., He returned to the Boston area from time to time and appeared in some exhibition games during the period, but his health then began to fail. He had apparently contracted tuberculosis in 1918, and he died in 1932 after an operation for appendicitis.

Related Sites

• Haddie Gill at the SABR Bio Project