Elkton, Maryland is a little town in the northeast corner of Maryland whose main claim to fame is having been the "Wedding Capital of the East Coast" back a hundred years ago. This was due to Maryland having lax laws about how long a couple had to wait for a marriage license and it being the first county seat in Maryland that anyone traveling from New York, Boston, Philadelphia or the rest of the North East United States would encounter - it's right on the Maryland-Delaware border. It's also not far from where I live.
There have been two Major League Baseball players born in Elkton* - Bob Jones and Dwayne Henry - and there's an odd coincidence about their baseball careers - they both played in Japan for the Chunichi Dragons. (They also both played for the Texas Rangers - in fact they were teammates from 1984-86 - but that's not quite as interesting.)
*The Wikipedia article about Elkton lists 19th Century pitcher Vic Willis as also being from there but he was born before the hospital in in the town was built (1908). Obviously this doesn't mean he couldn't have still been born in Elkton but Baseball-Reference lists him as being born in Cecil County, the county where the town is located.
Jones spent 1979 and 1980 in Nagoya. He hit .284 with 20 home runs in 174 games over the two seasons before returning to the US. Henry played in NPB in 1994, going 3-7 with an ERA of 3.48 in 31 games mostly out of the bullpen although he started five games. Jones has three Japanese cards I know of - #78 in the 1979 TCMA set and #4 in the 1979 and 1980 Takara Dragons sets (which Engel erroneously lists as Clarence Jones). I know of only two Japanese cards of Henry - 1994 BBM #43 and Takara Dragons #42. Here are their non-Takara cards:
2 comments:
That is a very interesting coincidence.
Interesting, I wonder if it is a coincidence or if they knew each other before and convinced each other to go play in Japan. Cool post for sure.
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