In 1905, The Washington Evening Star said:
“The unwritten history of baseball is full of authenticated instances of woman’s influence over it…Not infrequently a sweetheart’s or a wife’s objections to the game cause a star to forsake the diamond for work for which he is not fitted in the least degree, and at which he makes only a living at best.
“Bill Lange is a case in point. Up to (1899) he was one of the best ground coverers in the profession, and as a batsman had a high average. From the day of his wedding, his wife kept at him to leave the game, urging him to take the step on the grounds of personal safety. Bill reasoned with her and told her time and again that he knew of no other job for which he could make $4,500 in six months. But Mrs. Lange was obdurate, and so, when his last season closed Bill ruefully announced to his manager that the diamond would never know him again. And it has not, though he has annually been tempted by numerous flattering offers. ‘I have given my word to my wife,’ he says simply, ‘and so long as she feels as she does about the game I shall not take up the bat.’”
Bill Lange
Lange never played another professional game
The Evening Star said that occasionally a wife would change her mind, and allow her husband to play professional ball; George “Del” Howard was one such player.
Howard—under his middle name Elmer—was a member of the Mattoon, Illinois team in the Indiana-Illinois League in 1899.
“Howard took as his wife the daughter of a prominent citizen of a central western town. They had scarcely settled down after their honeymoon when Mrs. Howard began pleading with her husband to give up the game, naming as a reason that she had a strong dislike for it. She was so insistent that finally Howard reluctantly severed connections with the game, and secured employment selling agricultural implements.
“But he did not give up all hope of returning to the diamond. During the months that he was engaged in telling farmers of the merits of his particular make of wheat drills and mowers he spent his spare time endeavoring to get his wife interested in baseball. At first it was hard and slow work, and had to be accomplished diplomatically, but little by little he progressed to the point where Mrs. Howard would accompany him to games. Then Howard explained every play made, told her about the players, introduced them to her, and made her acquainted with the woman folk of the players who were in the grandstand.
“At the end of four tedious years his work of education bore fruit. Mrs. Howard came to him one day, confessed that she had changed her mind about baseball, declared that she would rather have him on the diamond than an agent for farm implements, and further caused him great joy by appending that he couldn’t get their quickly enough to suit her.“
After a five-year absence from baseball, Howard signed with the Omaha Rangers in the Western League in 1904. He hit .316 in 144 games (finishing second to William “Bunk” Congalton of the Colorado Springs Millionaires for the batting title) and was purchased by the Philadelphia Phillies.
Del Howard
Traded to Pittsburgh for three players, the 27-year-old Howard made his major league debut for the Pirates on April 15, 1905, in Cincinnati with his wife Jessie in the stands.
Howard’s rookie season was his best; he hit .292 in 123 games with the Pirates. He played in the major leagues for five seasons and was a member of the 1907 and ’08 World Series Champion Chicago Cubs.
Howard played and managed in the minor leagues through 1922. His wife Jesse died in California in 1933. He died on his 79th birthday on December 24, 1956.
Baseball History Daily 