Emmett Tully
| Date and Place of Birth: | April 21, 1905 Eufaula, AL |
| Date and Place of Death: | January 13, 1943 Savannah, GA |
| Baseball Experience: | Minor League |
| Position: | Pitcher/First Base |
| Rank: | Private First Class |
| Military Unit: | Signal Corps, Fourth Service Command, U.S. Army Air Force |
| Area Served: | United States |
George Emmett Tully, most commonly known as Emmett
Tully, was the son of Irish immigrants Daniel and Elizabeth Tully, who
were living in Eufaula, Alabama, where the Chattahoochee River forms the
southern half of the Alabama and Georgia border, when he was born on
April 21, 1905.
Tully’s father died in 1908 following a long
illness and the family moved to Savannah, Georgia, where Emmett attended
the Benedictine Roman Catholic military high school. From there he
entered the University of Georgia and was a standout baseball player,
pitching and playing first base from 1925 to 1927.
Following his graduation, Tully signed with the
hometown Savannah Indians of Class B Southeastern League. He appeared in
59 games, 21 of them as a pitcher, and batted .241 with a 4-9 won-loss
record.
Tully was not involved in organized baseball in
1928, but in July 1929 he was playing for the Fitzgerald club of the
semi-pro Southeast Georgia League, when he was signed by the Greenville
Spinners of the Class B Sally League. Tully played 12 games for the
Spinners, four as a pitcher, and batted .238 with a 1-2 won-loss record.
That was the last of Tully’s pursuit’s into minor
league baseball, probably because he was raising a young family by this
time, although in 1932 he was pitching for the Fulton Bag and Cotton
Mills team in Atlanta. He and his wife, the former Virginia Kenney, had
four children - George, Jr., Virginia, Daniel and Charles. Over the next
decade Tully worked as a bookkeeper and as a shipping and receiving
clerk.
In April 1942, just five months after the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor, Tully, aged 37 and living with his family in
Athens, Georgia, entered military service with the Army Air Force.
Serving as a Private First Class with the Signal Corps, he was stationed
at Hunter Field in Savannah, Georgia, with the Fourth Service Command,
where he worked as a teletype operator at the Hunter Field Weather
Bureau.
On the evening of January 13, 1943, Emmett Tully
was fatally stabbed during a street fight in Savannah and died on the
way to the hospital at Hunter Field. Funeral services were held at St.
Joseph’s Church in Athens, Georgia, and he was buried at Prospect United
Methodist Church Cemetery in Jackson County, Georgia.
|
Year |
Team |
League |
Class |
G |
IP |
ER |
BB |
SO |
W |
L |
ERA |
| 1927 | Savannah | S'eastern | B | 21 | 101 | - | 40 | - | 4 | 9 | - |
| 1929 | Greenville | Sally | B | 4 | - | - | - | - | 1 | 2 | - |
|
Year |
Team |
League |
Class |
G |
AB |
R |
H |
HR |
RBI |
AVG |
| 1927 | Savannah | S'eastern | B | 59 | 145 | - | 35 | 1 | - | .241 |
| 1929 | Greenville | Sally | B | 12 | 42 | - | 10 | 0 | - | .238 |
Date Added July 28, 2020
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