Tom Sullivan (sullito03)

Thomas Brandon Sullivan

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 6' 0", Weight 190 lb.

• Debut June 14, 1925
• Final Game June 14, 1925
• Born December 19, 1906 in Nome, Alaska Territory USA
• Died August 16, 1944 in Seattle, WA USA

BR page

Biographical Information

Tom Sullivan was a catcher six years (1922-1928), all in the minors except for a cup of coffee in the majors in 1925, losing one year to suspension.

Sullivan was born on December 19, 1906, in Nome, AK, the first MLB player born in Alaska and the only player ever born in Nome. At the time, Nome was experiencing a gold rush and had as many as 20,000 residents. This was over half a century before Alaska gained statehood, and the next major leaguer to be born in the Territory was Steve Staggs, who made his debut in 1977.

He broke into Organized Baseball in 1922 at age 15 with the Albany Senators in the Eastern League. He then appears on the suspended list for Albany (1923) and Waterbury in the Eastern League (1924) but played a few games for the Outremont Canadiens in the Quebec-Ontario-Vermont League (1924).

Sullivan was 18 years old when he broke into the big leagues on June 14, 1925, with the Cincinnati Reds. He caught one game for the Reds with one at bat and a putout. He was the second youngest player in the league that year.

He returned to the minors with Jersey City in the International League (1925); Dover in the Eastern Shore League (1926); Lawrence in the New England League (1926); Easton in the Eastern Shore League (1927); Salem in the New England League (1928); Waterbury in the Eastern League (1928); and the Seattle Rainiers in the Pacific Coast League (1928); ending his baseball career at age 21.

Sullivan served in the U.S. Army during World War II (BN). He died from epilepsy in his cell at the Seattle, WA city jail. He had been booked that day for drunkenness and the failure to carry his draft card. He died at age 37 on August 16, 1944 and is buried at Calvary Cemetery in Seattle.

Sources

Principal sources for Tom Sullivan (sullito03) 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 Pacific Coast League: A Statistical History, 1903-1957 by Dennis Snelling; The International League: Year-by-year Statistics, 1884-1953 by Marshall D. Wright; and independent research by Walter Kephart (WK) and Frank Russo (FR) and others.

Related Sites

• Tom Sullivan at the Baseball Almanac
• Bio at Baseball Page
• and a full Bibliography from SABR's The Baseball Index (TBI)