A murder-suicide in a Pittsburgh hotel on Valentine’s Day in 1894 firmly occupies a place on the roster of baseball’s tragedies. It was the fatal result of a love affair between a major league pitcher and a baseball mogul’s wife.
Edgar McNabb pitched for the 1893 Baltimore Orioles, a team that boasted future Hall of Famers John McGraw and Wilbert Robinson. It was McNabb’s only season in the major leagues, a capstone to a journeyman’s career in the minor leagues. During his minor league exploits, McNabb met Louise Kellogg, the wife of W. E. Rockwell, who happened to be the Pacific Northwest Baseball League’s president. In 1891 and for part of 1892, McNabb pitched for the league’s Portland ball club, the Webfeet. He finished the 1892 season with the Los Angeles Seraphs of the California League.
The article “The Wages of Sin” in the March 5, 1894 edition of the Los Angeles Times details the McNabb-Kellogg relationship, citing a San Francisco Bulletin article as its source: “Like many other American women, Mrs. Rockwell had little else to do except dress well and amuse herself, and she was a constant attendant at the baseball games, where she met the pitcher. The Two soon became very intimate, and it was an open secret among he players that the affection of the two for one another was not purely platonic.
“Whenever his team was in Seattle, McNabb and the woman were always together, and when the team visited Spokane, the pitcher was always finding excuses to visit the city where Mrs. Rockwell lived.”
It was not a secret relationship. Kellogg shed her familial obligations to be with McNabb when the pitcher got the job with the Seraphs. The Bulletin article revealed, “At the same time Mrs. Rockwell left her husband and child and accompanied her lover from the pine frosts of Washington to the orange groves of California. The two lived together as man and wife, although their relations were well known to their intimate acquaintances”
Kellogg was a stage performer, finding herself in Pittsburgh to perform at the Wigwam Theater and registering with McNabb at the Hotel Eiffel as husband and wife. The article “End of a Guilty Love” in the March 1, 1894 edition of the Washington Post hypothesizes that a broken heart ignited McNabb’s fury: “A number of letters belonging to Miss Kellogg showed that she had been keeping McNabb supplied with money the past few months.
“The company she was with disbanded some time ago, and she came here with the probably intention of either staying with her parents in Braddock, or getting money to tide her over until she procured another engagement.
“McNabb met her here, and as the woman was likely trying to break off her intimacy with him, this probably prompted McNabb to shoot the woman and himself.”
McNabb put three bullets into Kellogg, paralyzing her; Kellogg confirmed McNabb’s emotions as the source of the violence. The article “Mrs. Rockwell Is Dying” in the March 2, 1894 edition of the Washington Post highlighted Kellogg’s condition: “Mrs. Rockwell said to the nurse and attending physician that McNabb committed the deed because he was jealous of her, and thought she was in love with some other person. She also said that if anything serious should happen she wanted the hospital authorities to send for her husband, W. E. Rockwell [sic], who is now in California. It is believed that McNabb was afraid Mrs. Rockwell was contemplating returning to her husband, and it was for this reason that he determined to kill her and himself.”
Kellogg died in the early morning hours of March 2nd.
A version of this article appeared on www.thesportspost.com on February 14, 2015.