Unidentified	Joe McCrum Born: September 16, 1865 Died: December 16, 1946 lf Majors: No
	Minneapolis Position: lf First game: August 15, 1888 Last game: August 15, 1888 # of games: 1	Manager Goodling released all players on August 15, 1888 as he was unable to pay them. The amatuer Lyndales club was brought in for the game that day against Kansas City. Identified through an article about McCrum in the Vancouver Province on July 13, 1905 (pg 7), describing how a "semi-professional team from Minneapolis, called the Lyndales" came to Kamloops, BC, to help that club win the British Columbia championship in "1890 or thereabouts" (actually 1889). The article identified Joe McCrum, Charles H. Watson, Frank March, Schoonmaker, Hank Hearn and Jack Herchimer (sic) from the Lyndales, all of whom match names in the box score for the game played on August 15, 1888.

In August 1888, the Minneapolis Millers of the Western Association were in financial trouble. Early in the month, they were almost unable to pay the player salaries, but a benefit kept them going for a little longer. On August 15, 1888, Manager William Gooding released the entire club and brought in an amateur club, the Lyndales, to play the game that day against the Kansas City Blues. Nine players took the field that day with the Lyndales. Two of them - Frank March (rf) and Fred Rehse (p) - had played previously with Minneapolis that season. A third player, Allen (ss), may have been James Allen, an amateur from Minneapolis who pitched one game with Sioux City in July. The other six players - Hurn (2b), Nash (1b), Herkimer (3b), Watson (c), McCrum (lf) and Schoonmaker (cf) - were nothing more than last names in the box score for the game. The Lyndales lost 11-1 to the club that came within a few percentage points of winning the Association Championship that season. They had their one day as a professional and went back to their lives.

Less than a week before the Lyndales played the Blues, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that Joe McCrum beat Hugh Watson in a 100 yard dash, winning $50 (August 10, 1888, pg 2). Joe McCrum turned out to be Joseph Erin McCrum, who died in Kamloops, British Columbia in December 1946. His obituary described him as coming to Kamloops to play ball and staying to marry.

Joe Erin McCrum was born in Ontario, Canada in 1865, and by 1885 he was living in Minneapolis. He went to Kamloops during the summer of 1889 to play for the Kamloops ball club, summoned there by Frank March and Charles Hubert Watson (Hugh Watson?), who had gone there in the spring. After going to Kamloops, he got married there in 1891 and lived in Kamloops working for the Canadian Pacific Railroad as a conductor. He died at the age of 81 on December 16, 1946.

The photo of McCrum was posted to an ancestry site as coming from a 1941 newspaper clipping on the 50th wedding anniversary of Joseph and Annie (King) McCrum, from approximately May 20, 1941.

Date	Pos	AB	R	BH	2B	3B	HR	SB	PO	A	E	BB	HPB	K
8-15-1888	lf	3	0	0					0	0	2
1 Games		3	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	0