via the MetroWest Boston Visitors Bureau:
Captain Edward Leslie Grant of Franklin, Massachusetts — known as “Harvard Eddie” — was a rare figure in early professional baseball: a Harvard graduate, Major League third baseman, and later a World War I officer. After leaving baseball to practice law, Grant volunteered for service and was killed in action on October 5, 1918, while leading troops during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. He became the first Major League Baseball player to die in World War I.
In 1921, the New York Giants honored Grant with a five-foot granite monument and bronze plaque at the Polo Grounds in center field. Unveiled before a crowd of 30,000 on Memorial Day, the inscription remembered him as “Soldier – Scholar – Athlete.” For years, players and veterans groups held annual tributes at the site, and the plaque appeared in the background of several iconic baseball moments (Willie Mays famous 1954 World Series catch).
When the Giants left New York after the 1957 season, fans flooded the field after the final game and began removing pieces of the stadium. Grant’s plaque was taken down during the chaos. Although newspapers initially reported it recovered, its whereabouts were never clearly confirmed, and it became one of baseball’s most talked-about missing memorials.
Over time, a piece of baseball folklore emerged — the idea that the franchise had been under a “curse” since leaving behind Grant’s memorial and legacy. Whether superstition or storytelling, the tale gained traction among fans and historians and the "Curse of Captain Eddie" was born.
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| Eddie Grant marker on the Franklin Town Common - Veterans Walkway |
In 2006, after years of advocacy by researchers and veterans organizations, the San Francisco Giants installed a replica Eddie Grant plaque at their ballpark (now Oracle Park). In 2010, the team won its first World Series title in San Francisco — ending a decades-long championship drought and giving the story a poetic final chapter.
Today, Grant’s memorial once again has a visible place in the game he loved — and his story stands as a powerful reminder that heroes from Massachusetts helped shape both American history and American sports.
📷: MLB player Eddie Grant, who died during the Battle of Argonne Forest in France during WWI, is seen in a New York Giants uniform, Bain News Service, 1914.
📷: Willie Mays makes his famous catch off the bat of Vic Wertz in the 1954 World Series at the Polo Grounds. The New York Giants went on to sweep the Cleveland Indians in four games. | NY Daily News/Getty Images
📷: Left to right: Dave Bancroft of the New York Giants and Zack Wheat of the Brooklyn Dodgers place a wreath of flowers on Eddie Grant’s monument at the Polo Grounds on April 13, 1922.
📷: The Eddie Grant plaque outside Oracle Park in San Francisco. |
Alex Simon/SFGATE
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