Jim Foran

James Henry Foran

• Bats Unknown, Throws Unknown
• Height 5' 7" , Weight 159 lb.

• Debut May 4, 1871
• Final Game August 29, 1871
• Born 1847 in Pennsylvania USA
• Died November 29, 1906 in Newark, NJ USA

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Biographical Information

Jim Foran played only in 1871 in the National Association, doing well with a .348 batting average for the Fort Wayne Kekiongas. He appeared in what is called the first game in major league history, batting third in the order.

In 1869 he was with the amateur Philadelphia Athletics. In 1870 he had played with the Troy Haymakers.

One site says Foran was a household name in 1869. When Baseball Was a Passion.

He was long listed as having died in Los Angeles, CA in 1928, but that information turned out to be erroneous. He grew up in Paterson, NJ and in 1870 he married Emma Cuthbert, sister of teammate Ned Cuthbert. He did move to San Francisco, CA in 1879. He served time in jail there for assault in the 1890s, then seemingly moved back to the East Coast in the first decade of the 20th century. There was a person named James H. Foran living in Newark, NJ and South Orange, NJ between 1910 and 1915, but there is no proof that it was the former ballplayer.

This information was culled from clues such as a listing in the National Chronicle of May 14, 1870 that stated that Foran's wife Emma had died suddenly the previous week in Paterson. He remarried with Mary Devlin, also from Paterson, and had two sons before leaving for San Francisco. He lived there for most of the 1880s. His former brother-in-law, Ned Cuthbert, told a reporter in 1905 that Foran was in jail in San Francisco for manslaughter. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Foran was indeed sentenced to three years for assault in 1893, serving time in Folsom Prison, but he would have been released well before 1905. The Paterson Evening News on or around May 9, 1905 states that "relatives are entertaining James Foran, at one time a famous ball player". This implies that he lived elsewhere at the time, but likely not clear across the country.

A new clue which helped to finally track down Foran was that in 1890 one Emma Foran, aged 20, daughter of James Foran and Emma Cuthbert, married a man named Peter Dolan in Newark. Emma was born in May 1870, which implies her mother died in childbirth. She seemed to have grown up with grandparents Francis and Catherine Foran, according to census records, and these were most likely the ballplayer's parents. Francis was a Civil War veteran who was still alive in 1905, living at a home for elederly veterans. In the 1850 census, he is listed in Alfred, NY under the name "Forand" with three sons, including James H. born in 1848 in Pennsylvania. James is listed as living with his daughter Emma Dolan at the time of his death. He does appear in one census listing in California in 1880 and in the voter registry under the name James Henry Foran, finally putting a full middle name to what was for decades only an initial.

Further Reading

• "Foran No More", in Bill Carle, ed.: Biographical Research Committee Report, SABR, March/April 2017, pp. 4-5.
• "James Foran Found", in Bill Carle, ed.: Biographical Research Committee Report, SABR, May/June 2018, pp. 1-2.

Related Sites

• BR Minors page