Friday, April 4, 9 a.m. @ Elmwood Cemetery, Section 2, Lot 22
The 1887 World Champion Detroit Wolverines. Sam Thompson is the tall one in the center row, fifth from left. From the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library.
Start your Opening Day at Elmwood Cemetery! Pay respects to a great, say a prayer for the Tigers and have some coffee and donuts provided by the Historic Elmwood Foundation. The free event begins at 9 a.m. and lasts until we run out of coffee. You'll find a map to Sam Thompson's gravesite at the bottom of this post. Just meet us there!
Who was "Big Sam"?
Samuel "Big Sam" Thompson was born in Danville, Ind., in 1860, the fifth of six brothers who all played baseball for their local team, the Danville Browns. A carpenter by trade, Sam was working on a roof in Danville when a scout from Evansville came to watch the Thompson brothers play. The scout had to pay Sam the $2.50 he would have earned for the roofing job. Sam joined Evansville in 1884 and later played for an Indianapolis team in the Western League. When the league disbanded in mid-June 1885, the Detroit Wolverines of the National League picked him up.
Big Sam — he stood 6'2" — and a roster of other power players won the Wolverines the World Series in 1887. When the team fell apart the following year, Sam went to Philadelphia, where he played until his retirement in 1898.
During Sam's career, he led the National League in nearly every hitting category. He was the first Major League player to amass 200+ hits and 300+ bases in one season. His career RBI to games played ratio remains the highest in baseball history at .923. And Thompson still holds the Major League record for most RBIs in a single month, driving in 61 runs in August 1894 while playing for the Phillies.
Sam lived in Detroit for the rest of his life — he even came out of retirement to play for the Detroit Tigers for a brief stint in 1906. On Opening Day at Bennett Park, it was tradition for legendary Wolverines catcher (and ballpark namesake) Charlie Bennett to throw out the opening pitch – to Big Sam.
When Sam died in 1922, "the town of Detroit came to a stop," wrote his great-nephew Don Thompson for the Society for American Baseball Research. "Courts, businesses, and factories stopped working while the ceremony and parade of his casket went to Elmwood Cemetery."
Big Sam was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974. In 2000, a group of Thompson's relatives dedicated a new memorial at his gravesite.
Sam Thompson is buried in Section 2, Lot 22, next to his wife Ida, a local celebrity in her own right; until her death in 1947, at the age of 79, she never missed an Opening Day.
More about the event
To celebrate Sam Thompson's legacy and to petition the heavens for a great season of Detroit baseball, the Historic Elmwood Foundation will serve coffee and donuts by his grave on Opening Day, Friday, April 4, at 9 a.m. This informal gathering will last for an hour or so, or until we run out of coffee. We welcome you to leave a flower or memorial token on Sam and Ida's lot.
See map below to help you find us at the cemetery. Elmwood Cemetery is located at 1200 Elmwood Ave. in Detroit, at the northeast corner of Lafeyette and McDougall. Our driveway just north of Calvary Baptist Church, the "big orange church" on the corner at 1000 Robert Bradby Dr. Section 2 is on the north side of the cemetery.
Registration is optional but gives us an idea of how many donuts to bring; sign up here. Questions? Drop a line to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
