That time Baseball Hall of Famer Hughie Jennings jumped into an empty swimming pool and nearly died
The one thing I remember most about Hughie Jennings is that he once jumped into an empty swimming pool and nearly died.
Hughie Jennings had a remarkable baseball career: superstar shortstop for the famed rough and tumble Baltimore Orioles of the 1890’s, 3 time pennant winning manager of Ty Cobb’s Detroit Tigers, John McGraw’s right hand man on the great New York Giants teams of the 1920’s, elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1945.
Yet the one thing I remember most about Hughie Jennings is that he once jumped into an empty swimming pool and nearly died.
This fact trumps all else in the Hughie Jennings file in my brain, and so I decided to look up when this happened and perhaps answer the age old question: how did Hughie Jennings jump into an empty swimming pool and nearly die?
I had assumed the incident occurred during a drunken escapade or perhaps as an impetuous stunt in his youth. But the truth was much different.
The incident occurred on February 25, 1904 at the Cornell University gymnasium in Ithaca, New York. Jennings was 35 years old and nearing the end of his playing career, having played just 6 games in 1903 with the Brooklyn Superbas. Since 1899, he had spent his off-seasons attending Cornell Law School and serving as the manager of the Cornell baseball team.
At the end of that afternoon’s batting practice, he quickly undressed in the team locker room, took a shower and then sprinted towards the pool in the gymnasium, as was his daily custom. Jennings dove in with full force, not realizing that the pool was empty, and smashed his head and arms on the bottom of the pool. He was rendered unconscious and covered in bruises. Initial reports suggested his skull might be fractured. His right wrist was badly sprained.
Jennings was a 35 year old, fully functioning professional, who was also attending law school. He wasn’t drinking since he had just come from managing a practice. He was familiar with the gym. Why on earth did he jump into an empty pool?
Well, the account published in February 26, 1904 Rochester Democrat and Chronicle offers some details about what could have caused. Reportedly, the room with the swimming pool would get quite dark in the late afternoon, and the empty pool was emitting “a quantity of escaping steam.” Perhaps these factors influenced Jennings’ judgment. It is also possible that he was so familiar with the pool that his brain was on autopilot.
Or maybe it was a Scrooge McDuck situation?
In the end, the reasons don’t matter, in part because Jennings’ injuries were not as severe as initially feared.
In a remarkable example of old-time bad-assery, Jennings was able to attend class the very next day:
His hometown paper, the Pittston Gazette reported on March 11 that Jennings had completely recovered and would be ready for the season to start in April.
Incredible.
As a postscript, Jennings went on to a very successful managerial and coaching career and become perhaps most famous for his eccentric dancing, twirling and shouting when he would man the third base coach’s box. He was nicknamed Ee-Yah as a result.
If you go to the 0:48 mark of the video below, you can see Hughie twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom. It is quite lovely.
