This Week in MLB History: Moonlight Graham Appears in Right Field for NY Giants

Welcome to "This Week in MLB History," a special feature on B/R's Horsehide Chronicles blog meant to get you up to speed on baseball trivia. The game of baseball has provided us with a ton of memories since it was born in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1846 (or elsewhere in some other time, according to some), and this is where those memories will be revisited.

The New York Giants had a comfortable lead in the late innings of their game against the Brooklyn Superbas (you know them as the Dodgers) on June 29, 1905, so Giants manager John McGraw decided to send in the reserves.

One of the men he sent out to play the field was a young fellow by the name of Archibald Wright Graham. McGraw sent him out to play right field in the bottom of the eighth inning, replacing George Brown. 

It's uncertain whether Graham got to make a play in the bottom of the eighth inning, but what we do know is that he made it as far as the on-deck circle in the top of the ninth. Had Claude Elliott managed to get on base with two men out in the inning, Graham would have come to bat.

Alas, Elliott flew out to end the inning.

Graham went back out to right field in the bottom of the ninth inning, which was wrapped up hastily as the Giants closed out an 11-1 victory.

According to the Associated Press, Graham was barely mentioned in the local play-by-play account of the game. It was noted that he had gone in to play right field, and the sporting press described his appearance as being "quick as a flash of moonlight."

Graham never did get to come to bat in the major leagues. For that matter, he would never play in another major league game. He was soon out of baseball altogether, and he ended up spending 50 years of his life as a doctor in Chisholm, Minnesota.

He passed away in 1965.

About a decade later, Canadian writer W.P. Kinsella was flipping through a baseball encyclopedia and stumbled upon an entry for "Moonlight Graham."

He described his reaction many years later:

"

"I found this entry for Moonlight Graham. How could anyone come up with that nickname? He played one game but did not get to bat. I was intrigued, and I made a note that I intended to write something about him."

"

And he did. He called the book Shoeless Joe, a novel that was published in 1982.

Seven years later, Shoeless Joe was adapted into a film called Field of Dreams, starring Kevin Costner, James Earl Jones, and, of course, Burt Lancaster as the old Moonlight Graham and Frank Whaley as the young Moonlight Graham.

The movie has grossed over $90 million in the U.S. alone (per IMDB.com). It is the No. 5 greatest baseball movie ever according to Rotten Tomatoes, and the No. 2 greatest baseball movie ever according to Baseball America.

There is a band named "Moonlight Graham," and there is even a Moonlight Graham Scholarship Fund in Chisholm.

"I didn't anticipate this happening," said Kinsella a few years ago.

Indeed. One can only imagine what Graham would say if he were alive today. People are fascinated by his name only because some writer accidentally discovered him and his century-old obscure major league appearance in a book.

McGraw must have played a hunch.

Note: See Baseball-Reference.com for more on Moonlight Graham.

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