Joe Gedeon
Joe Gedeon was an American baseball player who played second base in the major leagues from 1913 to 1920. He played for the Washington Senators, New York Yankees, and St. Louis Browns. Born December 5, 1893 in Sacramento, California, he died May 19, 1941 in San Francisco at age 47. He batted and threw right-handed. His career MLB stats include a .244 batting average, 1 home run, and 171 RBIs.
Gedeon began pro baseball in 1912 in the Pacific Coast League. In 1913 he earned a spot with the Senators, returned to the PCL in 1914, and in 1915 had his best offensive season with Salt Lake City Bees (.317 average, .514 slugging in 190 games). He spent much of the next five seasons as a regular with the Yankees and Browns. He was a solid defender, leading American League second basemen in assists in 1918 and in fielding percentage in 1918 and 1919. In 1920 he led the AL in sacrifice hits with 48, a Browns/Orioles single-season record.
Gedeon was friends with Swede Risberg, a Black Sox conspirator, and attended a meeting about the 1919 World Series fix; he testified at the trial. He was banned from baseball on November 3, 1921 for “having guilty knowledge” of the scandal.
He spent Feb–May 1941 in a San Francisco hospital with a liver ailment and died May 19, 1941. His nephew Elmer Gedeon was one of two major league players killed in World War II in 1944. In 2025, he was posthumously reinstated by Commissioner Rob Manfred along with other deceased players who were on the ineligible list.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 13:58 (CET).