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I love reading about baseball family rarities. You know, things like family members hitting for the cycle (only three times, *see list below), or three brothers in the same outfield (only once, the Alous). Today Vince Jankoski tells us about another such family rarity: twin brothers playing on the same major league team. It’s so rare it’s only happened once in baseball history! So it’s right up my alley…and if you’re like me, I think you’ll enjoy what Vince has for us today:
A Real Baseball Rarity:
Twins on the Same Team!
The Story of the O’Brien Brothers
On December 11, 1930, in South Amboy, New Jersey, Margaret and Edward “The Chief” O’Brien welcomed into the world identical twin sons, Johnny and Eddie. The sons turned out to be excellent athletes, destined to play major league baseball.
Baseball has lots of twins: twin bills, twin killings, the Minnesota Twins. There was, however, only one set of twins to play alongside each other in the major leagues, the O’Briens.
(In the featured photo, we see the O’Brien brothers with their Pirates’ manager, Fred Haney)
The brothers were good all-around athletes. Both played college basketball for Seattle University where they upset the Harlem Globetrotters on January 21, 1952 with Johnny scoring 43 points. Johnny was the first NCAA player to amass 1,000 points in a season. At 5’9” he was the shortest All-American until 2016. Both brothers were drafted by the Milwaukee Hawks of the NBA, but chose baseball careers instead.
The twins got their opportunity in the bigs with the 1953 Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates of that year were an awful team, going 50-104 (.325) and finishing last. They were not, however, as bad as the year before when they went 42-112-1 (.273), also good for last place, 22 ½ games behind the seventh-place Boston Braves. Nor were they as bad as the current Chicago White Sox 41-121 (.253) or the 1962 New York Mets, 40-120 (.250).
Notwithstanding their awfulness, the Pirates of 1953 had some quality players. Ralph Kiner led the league in round-trippers for the seventh straight year. Dick Groat and Bob Friend were developing and would stick around long enough to be part of the 1960 Pirate World Series champions. Murray Dickson and Howie Pollet had won big earlier in their careers with the St. Louis Cardinals of the 1940s.
Branch Rickey was the general manager. He was trying to build a winner as he had done in St. Louis and Brooklyn. He brought in quality players who moved the franchise from last place to a World Series title in 1960. Rickey wasn’t around to see it, though, leaving Pittsburgh before the start of the 1956 season.
But back to the O’Brien twins. When Johnny and Eddie broke in, Eddie was the shortstop, Johnny his keystone partner. They both played in the identical number of games (89) their rookie season, fitting for a set of twins. Keeping up with the identical twins theme, neither played in 1954. They both resurfaced in the 1955 version of the Pirates. By then, Groat was ensconced at shortstop, so Eddie was moved to center field. Johnny remained at second. The following year Johnny was benched in favor of Bill Mazeroski. Eddie was likewise replaced in center by Bill Virdon.
As the Pirates improved, the O’Briens’ playing time lessened. Johnny hung on with the Pirates until 1958 when he was sent to St. Louis before finishing his career with the Braves. He never again reached his high of 89 games played in his rookie season. His best season was 1955 when he hit .299 in 304 plate appearances unless one considers 1957 when he hit .314 in 39 plate appearances. He was a career .250 hitter with four home runs. Starting in 1956, he was tried as a pitcher with little success (career record of 1-3 with an ERA of 5.61 in 61 innings of work).
Eddie was also a weak hitter. He was a career .236 batter with no home runs in 605 plate appearances. He played his entire career with Pittsburgh. He played his last game in 1958. Eddie, too, was tried as a moundsman, likewise with little to show for it (career record of 1-0 with an ERA of 3.31 in 16 2/3 innings pitched).
Eddie is mentioned in Jim Bouton’s Ball Four as the Seattle Pilots’ bullpen coach who refused to catch Bouton’s knuckleball. Eddie was also the athletic director at his alma mater. Johnny, too, stayed in Seattle. He served on the city council and broadcast Seattle University basketball games. To complete the twin cycle, both Eddie and Johnny worked as energy consultants for the Alaska shipping industry.
Eddie passed away in 2014, but Johnny is still with us at age 93.
N.B. This essay was suggested by Don Ricciardella. Don was raised in western Pennsylvania, rooting for these same Pirate teams referenced in the article, including the O’Brien twins. Don is retired from the U.S. Government Printing Office. He was a long-time usher at Holy Rosary Church in Washington, DC. Don now resides in Bethesda, MD where he moderates weekly trivia sessions at an assisted living facility. One of Don’s trivia questions was an inspiration for this essay.
Vince Jankoski
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*Family pairs hitting for the cycle: father and son Gary Ward (1980) and Daryle Ward (2004), grandfather and grandson Gus Bell (1951) and David Bell (2004), and father and son Craig Biggio (2002) and Cavan Biggio (2019)
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