The Pecan Park Eagle

“Loved that Stance!”

There have only been four of them, but these families have left their own rare and special mark upon baseball history. Of all the thousands who, at least, have either magically Moonlight Grahamed their ways into a single official game box score since the late 19th century – or were simply struck out once as pinch hitters on the same day they were informed of their assignment to Wilkes-Barre, we also have these four families whose DNA/baseball culture mixes were strong enough to produce three direct descendant  big leaguers in a row.

Most of us know of the two most royal ones on our Baseball Almanac list. The Boones and the Bells have been lighting up the headlines quite literally now for generations. The Boones have made the latest noise this current off-season with the announcement that Aaron Boone is taking over as the new manager of the New York Yankees.

The rest of the Boones and all the Bells ring the same. And that’s loudly. It’s hard to find many dark corners of history since the post WWII Era in which none of their names arise. And they’ve each gone father, son, and two grandsons each in the wake they’ve left in the big sea of hindsight. Mike Bell’s 19-game total MLB career was pretty much a bust, but, hey. the man got there as did his brother, his father, and his grandfather – and none of them were busts. Plus, we do not have open access to news of injury or personal issues that may have halted the youngest Bell so early in the game.

The Coleman family pulls the steady cord when you look at their achievement records. If you go to Baseball Reference .com to research them, you may even see that steadiness in the eyes of each their photos. They were – all three of them – right-handed pitchers with steady records over several seasons. Grandfather Joe worked 1o years between 1942 and 1955, going 52-46, 4.38 as an all American Leaguer. Son Joe was 142-135, 3.70 over 15 seasons (1964-1979). Grandson Casey Coleman (2010-2012, 2014) was 8-13, 5.25 in four seasons. We don’t know if his recent absence from MLB is injury or performance related. Or maybe the family DNA battery simply ran out.

The Hairston family appearance here seems more fluky. At age 31, Sammy Hairston joined the Chicago White Sox on July 21, 1951 a one of the players coming over from the Negro Leagues in the years that followed Jackie Robinson. Hairston was there through August 26, 1951 and 2 for 5 as his total MLB record. If you hve to come late and leave early, may as well take a .400 BA with you on the waves good bye. And here’s fluky. If Sammy doesn’t get that whisky shot glance that summer, he and his family are not on this list today. Then comes Sammy’s son Jerry with a long career (1973-1989), followed by the direct grandsons of Sammy, – Jerry, Jr. (1998-2013) and Scott (204-Active).

Other families, like the early 20th century Delahantys, may have produced more direct family members as MLB siblings, but these four families, so far, are the first to do three joined direct descendant generations.

And who knows? Maybe one or more of these four families will make it four generations too.

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Tags: Baseball's Three Generation Families

This entry was posted on March 17, 2018 at 2:43 am and is filed under Baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.