The Duke of Tralee
Roger Bresnahan, The Duke of Tralee, was just 18 when he became a major league baseball player in 1897.
Roger Bresnahan, The Duke of Tralee, was just 18 when he became a major league baseball player in 1897, but his factory-working Irish immigrant father told him to quit playing a boy's game and be a man with a real job. He wanted to please his father, and be a baseball player. Finding a way to do both seemed impossible.
Baseball in the early 1900s had no safety gear, spit balls were legal, and tactics today's fans might call dirty, but the crowds back then loved it. The Duke of Tralee played with greats like Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson, Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, Miller Huggins, and John McGraw.
David Mickey Evans, who was the screenwriter, director, and narrator of the iconic classic film The Sandlot, has signed on as Director and co-screen writer with Bresnahan. Dave Bresnahan, who is a distant cousin of the Duke of Tralee, is the film's producer and is co-screen writer with Evans.