Frank Ringo

Frank C. Ringo (October 12, 1862 – April 12, 1889) was a professional baseball player from 1880 to 1888. He played four seasons of Major League Baseball as a catcher for the Philadelphia Quakers (1883–84), Philadelphia Athletics, Detroit Wolverines (1885), Pittsburgh Alleghenys (1885–86), and Kansas City Cowboys (1886). He committed suicide by morphine overdose in April 1889 at age 28. His suicide is the earliest by a major league baseball player to be recorded in the Baseball Almanac.

Early life Ringo was born in Parkville, Missouri, in 1860. Ringo began his professional baseball career in 1880 playing for Kansas City. He also played minor league baseball in Peoria, Illinois.

Pittsburgh After his release from Detroit, Ringo reportedly "dropped out of public notice altogether." He next played with the Pittsburgh Alleghenys of the American Association at the end of the 1885 season. He appeared in a total of 18 games, nine each at catcher and first base, for Pittsburgh during the 1885 and 1886 seasons. He compiled a .182 batting average for Pittsburgh in 1885 and increased his average to .214 in 1886.

Ringo played his last professional baseball games in 1888 as a member of the St. Paul Apostles of the Western Association. He appeared in 32 games and compiled a .262 batting average. During his off-seasons, Ringo worked as a traveling salesman for a firm in Kansas City.

Final weeks On January 1, 1889, Ringo was married to Emma Williams of Fort Scott, Kansas. The newspaper further noted that Ringo had played well in 1888 and opined: "He is a good man when he keeps straight, and he has kept straight for a long time now. Here's a chance for some team to secure a good, hard-working catcher." On the afternoon of April 11, 1889, Ringo ingested 40 grains of morphine at his mother's residence at 1214 Virginia Avenue in Kansas City. It was reported that the morphine was his second attempt at suicide, and his actions were motivated by feelings of mortification and shame at being unable to free himself from alcohol. According to one newspaper account, the suicide was "deliberately planned and carefully executed", and the drug had hours to take its effect before Ringo's condition was discovered. A doctor was called and at 10:30 p.m., Ringo was declared to be in dangerous condition. He died at 9 a.m. the next day in the presence of his family. Many baseball historians debate this however, as the earliest recorded case was Fraley Rogers, who committed suicide in 1881 though Baseball Almanac doesn't count his suicide as the first as they consider the first year of MLB to be 1876 (Rogers made his debut in 1872), while other sites such as Baseball Reference say 1871 was the first year of MLB. Ringo was buried at Elmwood Cemetery in Kansas City.