Tommy Bond

Thomas Henry Bond (April 2, 1856 – January 24, 1941) was a Major League Baseball player who was a pitcher and a right fielder for a total of ten seasons. A native of Granard, Ireland, he is the first man born in Ireland to play Major League Baseball. Bond was also the last survivor of the National League's first season (1876). Early life Tommy Bond was born on April 2, 1856, in Granard, Ireland, to an English father and Irish mother. The family migrated to Brooklyn, New York, in 1862, and Tommy played amateur and semiprofessional baseball there in the early 1870s. Career Bond played for six teams during his career: the Brooklyn Atlantics (1874), Hartford Dark Blues (1875–1876), Boston Red Caps (1877–1881), Worcester Ruby Legs (1882), Boston Reds (1884), and Indianapolis Hoosiers (1884). He also managed the Worcester team for six games. On October 20 of his rookie year, he fell one out short of what would have been major league baseball's first no-hitter. Two years later, he was the losing pitcher in the first successful no-hitter, hurled by George Bradley on July 15, 1876.