Very entertaining article.

I'm not keen on self-linking but...
this was quite entertaining. I will read your other entries as well.

Cleveland Spiders SS Ed McKean accidentally shoots himself through the ‘fleshy portion’ of his finger with a revolver

...but decides to just let it be.

#3 is very well done.

Does anybody have an earlier citation of a Cleveland team shooting themselves in an appendage?

...but decides to just let it be.

...rather than going for help.

Happiness is a warm gun.

Fleshy portion of his finger. Fleshy portion?

Fleshy portion of his finger. Fleshy portion?

I think it's as opposed to shooting it in the bone (or I guess the nail).

I kind of wish I'd been around for 19th century baseball (and yes, I've seen the Conan clip). It seems so rough and tumble compared with what we have now. Can you imagine a player shooting himself in the fleshy part of his finger these days? The sermonizing and moralizing about it from every corner of the media would run non-stop for weeks. The player would hire a wall of lawyers. There would be league suspensions, possibly jail time. It would be Plaxico Burriss all over again.

In 1892, it's just "Meh, shot my finger. Pour some beer on it and get back in the lineup. Beats working in the mines."

“Cleveland Spiders SS Ed McKean accidentally shoots himself through the ‘fleshy portion’ of his finger with a revolver. He will recover within a week and go on to drive in 93 runs, albeit with the lowest batting average and HR total of his career to date.”

Yes, but did he wear an onion on his belt?

I'm seconding Catuli's thoughts. Give me a time machine and let me see any era of baseball and I'm going way back, Cobb at the latest, but I'd be aiming more at the 1880-1890's period.

And what the hell happened to all the Elmers?

I think they went to the glue factory.

...but decides to just let it be.

How apropos: It was 48 years ago tonight that The Beatles debuted on The Ed Sullivan Show.

How apropos: It was 48 years ago tonight that The Beatles debuted on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Brian Wilson was not amused.

Noooo! Not THAT Brian Wilson, the singing one.

I don't know about a lot of issues emerging if a player shot himself in the finger. Remember, your last VP shot a friend while hunting and it was out of the news cycle within a couple of days. That one still blows my mind. The love of guns in the USA is beyond insanity. My daughters didn't believe it until we went to a mall and there was a sign in the window saying that guns were not allowed - at first they thought it was a joke then figured out it was for real, that there is a real risk of people wandering into a mall with a gun and that many people would think nothing was wrong with doing that.

I think Koyie Hill returning to the majors after nearly severing an entire hand's worth of fingers should have been a bigger story.

Edit: his own fingers, I mean.