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The Double Murder
Good evening. This is Dead Legends. We’re the kind of guys who love a good chirp.
“Balls, party of four, your table is ready.”
Gets me me every time.
Let’s dive in.
Today’s story is about a ballplayer who lost his way and ended up in jail for second-degree murder.
Sam Crane was an amazing defender, but most days he couldn’t hit the side of a barn.
Back in 1914, Crane was playing for Greensboro in the North Carolina State League.
Another team in the league, Raleigh, was managed by Earle Mack - Connie Mack’s son.
Earle advised his father to take a chance on Crane since the Philadelphia Athletics were looking for a new shortstop to replace Jack Berry.
Connie Mack took a liking to the kid and gave him a spot on the team - he made his big league debut at 20 years old.
Unable to get things going at the dish, Crane bounced around over his seven-season career and only played in 174 games in the majors.
By the summer of 1928, Crane was no longer playing baseball.
He left his wife that summer to pursue a woman named Della Lyter, whom he’d met in Reading while playing for the Buffalo Bisons.
Crane was absolutely in love with this chick; he even mortgaged his mom’s house to get them an apartment.
Things got hot and heavy pretty fast, but Lyter didn’t have the same level of love for Sam.
In the summer of 1929, Della ended the relationship and started seeing an old boyfriend, John D. Oren.
Sam went into a downward spiral and started drinking heavily.
On August 3rd, while under the influence and in possession of a revolver, Crane “bumped into” Lyter and Oren at a saloon in Harrisburg.
Crane said he intended to harm himself that day, but it didn’t turn out that way.
Sam followed the couple into a side room where Oren was playing his ukulele.
He pulled out the revolver and unloaded five shots at Della, then another two shots at John - both of them ended up dying.
The next next day, Crane walked into the police station and gave himself up.
At his trial, he testified that he was insane from love and alcohol.
The jury handed Sam two guilty verdicts for the second-degree murders of Oren and Lyter.
He was sentenced to 18-36 years in prison.
Behind bars, Sam was a model inmate - playing for and managing the prison baseball team.
In 1934, he started applying for parole.
Connie Mack came to his defense and made pleas to the parole board every year.
In 1944, after serving 15 years, he was released.
When he came home, Mack offered Crane a field maintenance job at Shibe Park, but he turned it down because he found more lucrative work at a War Plant.
He died 11 years later, a free man with a tainted legacy.
GOAT Status
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From Jackie Robinson merch to OG logo tees, Homage has it all.
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It’s the kind of gear that will have people coming up to you saying “where did you get that??”
Personally, I’ll be rocking Homage all season long.
Strange Names
If you're just joining us, we play this game every day where we try to find the weirdest names throughout baseball history.
Why? Don't ask us, it's just something we like to do.
If you've been rocking with us for awhile now, you know what time it is.
Today's winner is:
Unfortunately, Tony’s last name lines up perfectly with his stats.
He only played two seasons in the majors, putting up absolutely abysmal numbers.
Tony played amateur and semi-pro baseball for most of his life, which was cut short at 36 by pneumonia.
The Dead Legends Archive
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That's it for today. Tomorrow we're back at it like a bad habit. See ya!
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