Enter to win a copy of The Death Row All Stars: A Story of Baseball, Corruption and Murder along with a pair of tickets to see the Sacramento River Cats take on the Reno Aces on Saturday, August 30.
Death Row All Stars Pitcher, Thomas Cameron
No one knew better than the inmates at San Quentin in the early 1900s how serious prison officials took baseball games. Unaware that his application for a new trial had been denied by the supreme court a youthful bandit who had been sentenced to death in November 1913 for holding up a Southern Pacific train and killing a traveling agent, appeared on the prison diamond at noon on May 12, 1914 as a member of one of the prison baseball nine, and displayed great enthusiasm for the game. The news that the criminal’s application had been denied arrived early in the morning that day, but was purposely withheld from him in order that he might enjoy his last contest on the diamond. Nearly all the other prisoners knew that the fate of popular bandit had been sealed, but they left it for the prison officers to break the news to him after the game. The convict stepped onto the field confident he had escaped death.
To learn more about prisoners who played baseball read The Death Row All Stars: A Story of Baseball Corruption and Murder.
