The Garden State has produced two sets of identical twins who played for the same big-league baseball team at the same time. The O’Briens—Johnny and Eddie—claimed this honor with the Pirates in the 1950s. They were well-known college basketball stars before suiting up for the Bucs. The other twins were Joe and Maurice Shannon, who played together on the Boston Braves in 1915. Each was big and good-looking with a shock of red hair, but of course only one (Maurice) could be nicknamed “Red.” The Shannon twins hailed from Jersey City and played a semester of college ball at Seton Hall before being signed by the Braves at 18.
The Braves had a good team—they’d won the World Series the year before—and the plan was for the Shannons to be evaluated in Boston by manager George Stallings, who would then assign them to the appropriate minor-league level. They worked out with the club and sat in the dugout for a June 30th game against the Phillies. Fate stepped in when a line drive took a funny hop and smashed left fielder Joe Connolly in the face, knocking him out. McKechnie sent Joe Shannon in to replace him. In two at bats against Grover Cleveland Alexander, he delivered a sacrifice fly and struck out. A week later, Joe butchered a couple of balls in the outfield, but it was Red who was shipped to minors, with Joe riding the pine the rest of the summer. A late-season call up brought the twins back together and they appeared in the season finale together, with Joe at third and Red at second.
Still teenagers, the Shannons were both released at the end of spring training in 1916. One writer joked that Stallings, being unable to tell them apart, avoided letting the wrong one go by letting them both go. Alas, Red got the lion’s share of baseball skills. A switch-hitter who could handle himself at several positions, he was a regular or semi-regular in the majors mostly for Connie Mack’s Philadelphia A’s, while Joe—who had a better power stroke but not much of a glove—never made it out of the minors again. Both brothers went into the military during World War I and in 1919 Red was traded to the Red Sox, where he played second base and batted 8th in a lineup that featured Babe Ruth as its cleanup hitter. While the free-swinging Ruth fanned 58 times, it was Red who led the AL with 70 strikeouts.
Red bounced around baseball for several years in the majors and minors, before joining his brother working for Jersey City’s Recreation Department. Well-liked and well-connected, the Shannons held good municipal jobs through the Depression, with Joe becoming the superintendent of Roosevelt Stadium before passing away in 1955 at the age of 58. Red ran baseball programs in the summer and basketball programs in the winter for the better part of three decades. He retired in 1962 and passed away in 1970.