As manager Roger Connor (July 1, 1857 – January 4, 1931) was an American 19th-century Major League Baseball (MLB) player.

[1] The family lived in the Irish section of Waterbury, known as the Abrigador district, which was separated from the rest of the city by a large granite hill.

[3] In 1878 he would transfer to the minor league Holyoke Shamrocks, where he became known for hitting home runs across the field into the Connecticut River.

This so impressed Springfield baseball boss Bob Ferguson that he signed Connor onto the National League (NL) Troy Trojans when he bought them out in 1880.

[4] In Connor's first year with the Troy Trojans, he teamed with future Hall of Fame players Dan Brouthers, Buck Ewing, Tim Keefe and Mickey Welch, all of whom were just starting their careers.

Though Connor, Ferguson and Welch were regularly in the lineup, the other future stars each played in only a handful of the team's 83 games that season.

[5] Connor committed 60 errors in 83 games and sustained a shoulder injury, prompting a position change to first baseman for 1881.

[6] He later played for the New York Gothams, and, due to his great stature, gave that team the enduring nickname "Giants".

Connor hit baseball's first grand slam on September 10, 1881, at Riverfront Park in Rensselaer, New York.

The New York Times reported of the feat, "He met it squarely and it soared up with the speed of a carrier pigeon.

"[9] A group of fans with the New York Stock Exchange took up a collection for Connor and bought him a $500 gold watch in honor of the home run.

During the 1894 season, the Giants looked toward the team's youth and Connor lost his starting position to Jack Doyle.

Angeline had secretly begun receiving Catholic education and was planning to surprise Connor by getting baptized on the day that Lulu would have turned a year old.

Near the end of the 19th century, Angeline gave Roger a weather vane which had been constructed from two of his baseball bats.

The team had been dropped from the Eastern League and had suffered financial losses related to traveling as far away as Canada for games.

Connor proposed that he might purchase the team and attempt to have it admitted to the Connecticut State League, decreasing its travel requirements.

[17] He lived to see his career home run record bested by Babe Ruth, although if it was celebrated, it might have been on the wrong day.

However, John Tattersall's 1975 Home Run Handbook, a publication of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), credited Connor with 138.

[6] Decades after his death, Waterbury citizens, as well as through donations from baseball fans, raised enough money to purchase a headstone for his grave, which was dedicated in a 2001 ceremony.