Terry Pluto says the story of Ed Delahanty piqued his interest.

“I get an email from a fan who was wandering through Calvary Cemetery,” Pluto says. “He man saw a tombstone that said 'DELAHANTY.' He wondered if maybe it was the Indians Hall of Famer, Ed Delahanty.”

So, Terry Pluto visited the cemetery on Miles Ave. and East 100^th Street. And, he started doing some research.

“I found out there’s a tremendous mystery in how he ended up under that tombstone. How did he end up there at the age of 35? He was still playing.”

All we know for sure is, he is buried there. Even that is not super-duper positive. It says, “Ed Delahanty” but it just gives the dates that match up when he was born and died.

The player
Ed Delahanty was born in 1867 and died in 1903. In his 16 seasons with Philadelphia, Cleveland and Washington, Delahanty batted .346, with 101 HRs and 1464 RBIs, 522 doubles, 185 triples and 455 stolen bases.

 “Ed was, in the 1890’s, some people argue perhaps the greatest player of that decade. He still has the fourth-highest batting average of any big-league player. And he is in the baseball Hall of Fame [inducted in 1945].”

His death
Terry Pluto says not much is known about Delahanty’s death. “He was fished out of the Niagara River wearing shoes, socks and a neck tie, missing a leg.”

Here’s what we do know: “His team had just played in Detroit. He was in the process of jumping his team to go to a team in New York. He got on this train with $1,500 in diamonds and over $500 in cash. Nobody could figure out how he had all this money. He had been having money problems. The Plain Dealer reported he had spent that off season down in New Orleans following the horses and as they said, the horses were getting the better of him.

Staggering off drunk
“He was roaring drunk on this train,” Pluto says.

 “He’s so drunk on this train, the conductor throws him off near Buffalo, on the Peace Bridge. He is seen sort of staggering off the bridge. Turns out it’s a draw bridge.”

The rumors

1. Somebody followed him on the bridge, robbed him and pushed him.
2. There’s a night watchman on the bridge who later said that he tried to warn him. Some said the night watchman had gotten into a scuffle with him and he ended up over the bridge.
3. He jumped. But, Pluto says nobody came up with the diamonds or the cash.

The aftermath
“The funeral was a very big deal at Immaculate Conception Church in Cleveland,” Pluto says. “There’s stories about the gravestone covered in flowers.”

“But it’s very evident that nobody in this family has shown up in quite a while to do anything with these tombstones or anything else. The family later on claimed there was foul play.”

“The sad part is that this guy was a great player. He was clearly an alcoholic at the end of his career. There’s stories about his mother being with him the week before up in Detroit and getting a priest to pray over him to stop him from drinking, begging him to come back to Cleveland to get him to sober up and pull himself together.”

“I think somebody threw him over and took the money. It’s like one of the great murder mysteries of baseball history.”

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