The SABR (Society for American Baseball Research) Nineteenth Grave Marker Committee has placed headstones for many ballplayers and baseball pioneers of the 1800s. For our next project, we’re doing something a little different. The Grave Marker Committee will honor a forgotten but influential entertainer of the 19th Century. While he never had so much as a single professional at-bat, his impact on the game can still be witnessed by anyone who goes to a ballpark today.
Frank Oakley, who performed under the stage name “Slivers,” was one of his era’s most famous and well-paid clowns. His act was seen by millions of people across the country from circus tents to the original Madison Square Garden. One of his most famous skits was a one-man pantomime of a baseball ballgame. He batted, he pitched, he ran, he got into arguments with the umpire — all while being the only soul on stage. Not only did Slivers’ act influence later entertainers like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, but the way he turned the stage into a baseball diamond helped inspire others to turn the baseball diamond into a stage. Baseball clowns like Nick Altrock, Al Schacht and Max Patkin became famous as on-field entertainers, employing some of the same pantomime style that Slivers used. From there, it’s not hard to draw a straight line to today’s on-field entertainers — the mascots. If you’ve ever been entertained by the Phillie Phanatic, Mr. Met, the Famous Chicken, or countless others, then you owe a little thank-you to Slivers.
The idea to place a grave marker for Frank Oakley came from John Thorn, the official historian of Major League Baseball and a member of the Grave Marker Committee. He has written extensively about the life and influence of Slivers (see here, here and here) and even helped fund the digitization of the only known film clips of his act. Oakley and his wife Nellie Dunbar, also an entertainer, have lain in an unmarked grave in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Maspeth, NY, for more than a century. John brought the idea to the rest of the Grave Marker Committee, and given Oakley’s niche in baseball history, we felt that SABR was in a position to end a sad story on a happy note.
You see, though Oakley brought joy and laughter to so many, his life had some tragic elements. Born in Sweden to English parents in 1871, he literally ran away from home as a child to join the circus. He fell in with a traveling show and became a groomer, but it wasn’t long before his sense of humor and physical skills moved him to a different career path as a clown. Nicknamed “Slivers” because of his tall and thin frame, he drew massive crowds at circuses and vaudeville shows and became a star. He married the singer Nellie Dunbar in 1902, and they had a daughter, Ruth. But Nellie died in 1913, and Frank left his daughter in the care of a family friend. He befriended a young down-on-her-luck vaudeville singer named Viola Stoll, and she stole some of Nellie’s jewelry. Frank pressed charges but almost immediately regretted it. She was caught, found guilty of theft, and sentenced to three years in a reformatory. By the time she was due for release, Frank was deeply obsessed and wanted to marry her, despite a nearly 20-year age gap. She rejected him, with the newspapers reporting that she wanted nothing to do with the entertainment world. On top of that heartbreak, the circuses were fading from the limelight as people flocked to motion pictures instead. His fame as a clown had peaked, and work and money were harder to find.
Around March 6 or 7, 1916, Oakley checked into a theatrical boarding house in New York City. By the early hours of March 8, the landlady had not seen him, and his room was locked. According to a report from The Evening World, a couple of tenants rattled his door until the smell of gas poured into the hallway, so the police were called. They broke into the room and found gas coming out of the radiator and the chandelier, and Oakley, surrounded by whiskey bottles and photographs of him at the height of his fame, dead on the floor from asphyxiation. He was 45 years old. He was buried next to Nellie at Mount Olivet, but no stone was ever erected over their grave.
We hope to have the grave marker installed in Mount Olivet by the end of the summer, and we will look to have a dedication ceremony to commemorate the Oakleys and the mark that Slivers left on the circus and baseball worlds. Stay tuned!
SABR’s 19th Century Grave Marker Committee was created to identify 19th-century baseball notables who either lack a grave marker or whose headstone is in dire disrepair, and then rectify those issues. Since its formation in 2016, it has placed grave markers for players like Ed Williamson, Pud Galvin, Bobby Mathews and Bob Caruthers, as well as baseball pioneers James Whyte Davis and Hicks Hayhurst. We are always seeking suggestions for future projects, so if you know of a 19th Century baseball figure who has no gravestone or one in bad shape, please contact committee chair Sam Gazdziak at samgazdziak@gmail.com.
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