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Today’s Dodger of the Day is second baseman Tim Flood.

Tim Flood’s major-league service reads almost like a footnote. His career is long, interesting and filled with absurd tales. Capping this with “and he played for the Dodgers” with no further elaboration isn’t out of the question.

Flood is maybe the primordial example of a player whose bat sucked, but whose defense more than made up for the lack of offense. He was also apparently very well liked (as are many scrappy, defense-first utility guys).

Timothy Andrew Flood was born March 13, 1875 in Montgomery County, Missouri. By 1892, the Flood family was in St. Louis and Tim was playing semi-pro ball in its City League for the Daly Brothers team. The team, which Flood captained, won the league pennant in 1892 and 1893. Flood then moved across the Mississippi to play right field for a team in Belleville, Illinois.

Flood remained with Belleville until 1896. That year, the 21-year-old moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa to play for the Rabbits. While he was no offensive wunderkind, Flood put up great numbers in 1897, batting .307 over 466 at-bats.

His production was good enough to get him noticed by the Class-B Fort Wayne Indians of the Interstate League. They signed him away from Cedar Rapids in 1898. The next year, Flood permanently moved to second base. Flood claimed that, at some point in 1899, he injured his hand.

The then-St. Louis Perfectos drafted Flood later in 1899 to replace the aging Cupid Childs. Flood debuted September 24, 1899 and played in 10 games for the Perfectos. He hit .290 and even stole a base for his trouble.

Flood’s time with the Perfectos was short-lived. If we can discern one thing from Flood’s career, it is that was he certainly not in it just for the love of the game. He wanted money. St. Louis wouldn’t give him as much as he wanted, even though manager Patsy Tebeau wanted him back. The two sides were unable to come to an agreement, so Flood signed with the American League’s Buffalo Bisons.

(His nearly 30-year career does suggest that love for the game was certainly part of it. But ya gotta eat too.)

His time with the Bisons was also the beginning of Flood’s legal troubles. After playing 12 games in Buffalo, the Fort Wayne Indians took the Bisons to court over Flood’s contract. The Indians claimed they held Flood’s rights outside of the National League. The courts agreed and Flood left Buffalo. Another American League team, the Cleveland Lake Shores, bought Flood from the Indians. Flood spent the rest of 1900 in Cleveland.

Flood played with the St. Pauls Saints in 1901, alongside first baseman “Slats” Davis. Remember that name.

Slats.

In 1902, Brooklyn Superbas second baseman Tom Daly had jumped ship to the Chicago White Sox, leaving Brooklyn looking to fill the position. They turned to Flood, who immediately impressed. Crowds loved Flood for his fiery temper and defensive ability; he showed greater range than Daly ever could in a Superba uniform.

Daly had Flood beat at the plate.

Okay, pummeled is more the correct term. Daly hit .315 in his final season in Brooklyn. Flood hit .218 in 1902. Flood could’ve been the second coming of Jesus defensively and that kind of drop-off is hard to justify. Still, he was named captain in 1903 after Wee Willie Keeler left for the Highlanders.

A knee injury limited Flood’s 1903 season; he played in 89 games. After seeing no improvement at the plate, the Superbas decided to cut Flood.

Flood would beat the team to Los Angeles by 53 years. He signed with the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League of 1904 and was named captain. He put up good offensive numbers, hitting .270. He returned in 1905, which is where things get spicy.

Flood was a confrontational guy. Seeing him ejected for arguing with an umpire was not uncommon. Seriously, Retrosheet doesn’t have a detailed account of Flood’s game-by-game stats, but it has an incomplete log of his major league ejections. That’s the type of guy we’re taking about.

Late in 1905, Flood and an umpire got into an argument and Flood assaulted the umpire. The PCL banned Flood, before the Portland Beavers got him reinstated and bought out his contract. The umpire who got his ass whooped? None other than Slats Davis.

Flood refused to go to Portland, once again feeling he would be underpaid for his services. Portland felt Flood should be glad they got him unbanned from the PCL, but Flood wanted his money. Instead, he went to the independent Altoona Mountaineers. He played there for a season before moving north of the border to play for the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1907.

Then he got banned from another league. And went to jail. And became a cause celebre for Maple Leafs fans.

During a June 26 game, Flood assaulted an umpire, kicking him in the chest multiple times. While this umpire was not Slats Davis, Flood and the umpire had had incidents before. Flood was arrested and jailed after the umpire testified against him to get revenge. Flood was sentenced to 15 days in jail and banned from the Eastern League. Leafs fans, who loved Flood, were none too happy about this and signed a petition stating they would not return if Flood was banned. But the Eastern League held their ground and Flood never played in the league again. He served seven days before being released and spent the rest of 1907 in a second stint with the St. Paul Saints.

After a disastrous 1908, Flood began to bounce around the minor leagues as a player-manager. He played and managed in Little Rock, Nashville, Oklahoma City, Cairo, Illinois (it’s pronounced Cay-roh, btw) and Winnipeg. He retired as a player in 1913.

After his playing days were over, Flood became an umpire in the Northern League, Western League and Western Association before retiring for good in 1920.

Okay, so during the offseason I'll only do these posts on weekdays. As you can see, these can get kind of long. Writing them every day is fun, but it's also a time sink. I want to be able to have a few ready to go during the week (at least during the offseason).

During the regular season,they'll be 7 days a week. If the games won't take a break, neither will I.