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Ed Head

American baseball player (1918-1980)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionOct 22, 2025
Entity authorityQ16009291
Source-derived summary

Edward Marvin Head (January 25, 1918 – January 31, 1980) was an American professional baseball player who pitched in the Major Leagues from 1940 to 1946.

Head was notable for a number of reasons, one of them was the physical challenges he overcame to become a major league baseball player. A natural left-handed pitcher, at the age of 15, Head was involved in a vehicle accident that killed his girlfriend and almost resulted in the amputation of his left arm. After hours of surgery, Head's arm was saved but he could no longer use it to pitch, so he switched and became a right handed pitcher.

Head joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1940 and after compiling a record of 1–2, was sent back to the minor leagues for additional development. He returned in 1942 and was promoted to the team's starting rotation where he went 10–6 for the season. In 1943, he was not as effective, his record was 9–10, but he recovered in 1944 starting the season 4–3 with a career low ERA of 2.70 before he entered the Army to fulfill his service obligation.

After serving in the Army and not pitching in the majors for most of 1944 and all of 1945, Head no-hit the Boston Braves 5–0 at Ebbets Field on April 23, 1946, in his first start of the season. Several weeks later, Head injured his right arm and did not pitch for the remainder of the season. He failed to make the major league club in spring training of 1947, and never pitched in the majors again, his no-hitter being one of the last games he ever pitched.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Ed Head” is american baseball player (1918-1980). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Head, American and baseball, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1918, 1980, 1940, 1946—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1918-01-25. For this dossier, Head, American and baseball is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american baseball player (1918-1980)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 22, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q16009291. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1918, 1980, 1940 and 1946.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Ed Head”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Ed Head primary sources, Ed Head archive and Head research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Ed Head”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Ed Head” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.