We interrupt the Crankshaft awards to bring you a breaking story in Major League Baseball!
Bill Mazeroski died this weekend. Mazeroski is a Baseball Hall of Fame member, who hit one of the most famous home runs in baseball history. It was the first ever World Series-winning home run. This has only been done one other time, by Joe Carter in 1993.
Why are we talking about baseball necrology? Because former Major League Baseball player Johnny Lucadello was born on February 22, 1919. Lucadello was also the youngest player on the 1940 Toledo Mud Hens, the real-life baseball team which Ed Crankshaft canonically also played for. (Ed also has a real-life retired jersey number.)
For that reason, I view today as Ed’s birthday, because it’s the latest possible day he could have been born. And I think Lillian McKenzie was in his high school class – because this is the Funkyverse – which makes her well over 100 as well.
Ed’s baseball career, with its early integration experiences, and winter ball in pre-revolution Cuba, fits this time frame. So does Lillian, Lucy, and Eugene being young adults whose lives were interrupted by World War II. So does Pam’s life, centered around the 1970 Kent State shootings. Ed would have been about 30 at her birth.
I want to stress that 107 is the youngest Ed Crankshaft could reasonably be in 2026. The average player in the 1940 American Association, and on the Mud Hens themselves, wasn’t 21 years old: he was 27. If Ed was 27 in 1940, he’d be 113 today. Which would almost make him the world’s oldest man. (Unless Walt Wallet from Gasoline Alley also counts.)
We can’t move Ed’s birthday much later than 1919, because then he’d be too young to be drafted into the military. What if we gave him Joe Nuxhall’s backstory (pitched briefly in the majors at age 15, making Ed’s birth year 1925)? Ed would be way too young to join the military legally, much less be drafted.
Which would have made Crankshaft extremely likely to reach the major leagues, no matter how illiterate he was. MLB teams in 1942-1945 were eager to employ players who weren’t subject to being drafted. And since some were already missing, the standards were lower. A player too young to be drafted, who was also good enough to pitch in AA (the top minor league level at the time), would have been given plenty of chances. Especially on a mediocre team, which the Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Indians (both implied to be the Mud Hens’ parent club at some point) and St. Louis Browns (now the Baltimore Orioles, who was Toledo’s real-life parent club in 1940) were.
The optimal birth year seems to be 1922. That would make Ed 20 in 1942, which is the youngest that would have been drafted that year. So maybe he’s only 104 now. Which would also make him extremely young for AA baseball, and by definition a phenom. But let’s solve one problem at a time here.
So how many inches from reality is Ed Crankshaft’s life?
Out of 35 players on the real-life 1940 Toledo Mud Hens, only two lived to see 2003! They were Jake Wade (1912-2006) and Harry Bailey (1918-2014). Six others made it to the 21st century: Armond Payton (1917-2000), Daniel Scudder (1916-2000), Tommy Criscola (1915-2001), Lucadello (died in 2001), Hal Spindel (1913-2002), and Robert Jones (1916-2002). A ninth player, Harry Kimberlin, died on December 31, 1999 at age 90. Kimberlin was the last former Major League Baseball player to die in the 20th century.
Bill Mazeroski’s famous home run was in 1960. He was born in 1936. He was 89 when he died this year. Ed Crankshaft is 15-20 years older than all of those standards. Look at the photos of Harry Kimberlin and João Marinho Neto in the above links. That is what a very old man looks like.
On top of that, Ed is absurdly active. He still works as a bus driver, bowls regularly, goes out to eat with friends, portrays Santa Claus, sings in a choir, gets into arguments with cartoonists, goes to the fair, has traveled to New York, Winnipeg and Columbus, performs frequent physical feats, and builds an AI-powered smart garden. Very few people on earth have the expertise to build an AI-powered smart garden. And few centenarians on earth have the ability to do any of the other things.
So, Ed, since you like gardening so much, why don’t you dig a 6′ x 3′ x 3′ rectangular hole in the ground? I’m sure we’ll find something useful to do with it. Oops, I mean “you’ll” find something useful to do with it. Happy birthday and many more!
We now return you to the Crankshaft awards!
Son of Stuck Funky 