Jack Dunn has retired from baseball.
Dunn played for the Harrisburg Senators in the 2022 and 2023 seasons. He was a super-utility player, he played everywhere. I even saw him pitch an inning, giving up a run. The only position I did not see Dunn play was catcher, otherwise I’m pretty sure I saw him in all three outfield spots and all the infield positions across the two seasons.
I have no great memory of Dunn as a player, just a general sense that he was adequate at the plate but better on defense. I also remember that he seemed indefatigably happy to be there. He was living his best life, and that made him fun to watch.
And he had the perfect baseball name — Jack Dunn. Baseball historians know the name Jack Dunn. It was Jack Dunn who signed Babe Ruth to his first professional contract. It was Jack Dunn who owned the minor league Baltimore Orioles and led them to seven straight pennants. (Something I wish today’s Orioles would commemorate with a throwback game.) The coincidence of the names amused me, and it probably made me root for Dunn harder than I might’ve otherwise.
Dunn was promoted to Rochester midway through the 2023 season, and he played there the remainder of 2023 and all of 2024. He was released by the Nationals in Spring Training this year and signed by the Detroit Tigers, who assigned him to the Toledo Mud Hens. (The Mud Hens have their own connection to Baltimore’s Jack Dunn: when the St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore for the 1954 season, the minor league Orioles that he had owned moved to Richmond, Virginia, and they would later move to Toleda where they play today as the Mud Hens.) And last week, Dunn retired from baseball.
This is, sadly, an all too familiar story in minor league baseball. Dunn was one of the 1200 best baseball players on the planet. He came closer to tasting that cup of coffee than a hundred thousand other players, but still fell just short.
Nevertheless, I’m going to think of summer days and nights on Harrisburg’s City Island and the preternaturally happy player with the classically baseball name.
Jack Dunn, the Orioles Dunn, that is, is buried in a Catholic cemetery off Charles Street in north Baltimore. I visited the cemetery last year on Memorial Day to pay my respects. Baltimore may have forgotten Dunn, but I have not.
It rained on me as I wandered around the cemetery. I didn’t know where Dunn was buried, though I knew he didn’t have a separate headstone, but it wasn’t a large cemetery.
An older woman came to the cemetery while I was there, and we talked for a few minutes; she was concerned about the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s consolidation plan (which went into effect a few months ago) and what it meant for small cemeteries like this one. I listened to her, not saying much, because I didn’t have any answers for her, and we talked about why each of us were there — she was visiting her parents (whom I had walked past), and she seemed to think it was neat that I was visiting the cemetery for no other reason that to pay my respects to Baltimore’s baseball history. She was gone by the time I found the Dunn family.
It amused me that I had parked as close to Dunn as was possible; had I gone through the gate and walked straight, I’d have gone directly to Dunn’s gravesite.
It was a nice little cemetery. I’m not sure when, or if, I’ll ever return.