Eric Vaughn Plunk--Professional Baseball Player

Eric Vaughn Plunk (born September 3, 1963) is a former professional baseball player who pitched in the Major Leagues from 1986-1999.

Plunk was involved in two trades for Rickey Henderson. On December 5, 1984, as a minor leaguer, he was traded by the New York Yankees with Tim Birtsas, Jay Howell, Stan Javier, and José Rijo to the Oakland Athletics for Rickey Henderson, Bert Bradley, and cash. On June 21, 1989, he was traded by the Oakland Athletics with Greg Cadaret and Luis Polonia to the New York Yankees for Rickey Henderson. Plunk was part of the pennant-winning 1988 Athletics.

Known for his bookish looks and thick glasses, Plunk threw a mid- to upper 90s fastball and emerged with the Indians as a reliable set-up man in one of the American League's best bullpens.

Plunk's career took him to the Cleveland Indians as a free agent signing in the winter of 1992. There, he was the winning pitcher in the first ever game played at Jacobs Field on April 4, 1994. Plunk became one of the most reliable set-up men in baseball, posting a sub-3.00 earned run average in four consecutive seasons from 1993 to 1996. On September 17, 1996, Plunk pitched the final three innings and got the save in the Indians' 9-4 win over the White Sox that clinched the Tribe's second consecutive Central Division title.

Plunk's regular season success never translated over to the postseason. In 15 playoff appearances with the Athletics and Indians, Plunk had a 7.53 ERA and walked 10 batters in 14 innings of work. He was the losing pitcher for Game 3 of the 1997 World Series, his final postseason appearance.
Days before the trade deadline during the 1998 season, the Indians traded Plunk to the Milwaukee Brewers for Doug Jones. Plunk pitched one more season in the major leagues for the Brewers in 1999.

(From Wikipedia) 

THE LINEAGE:

(Eric Vaughn Plunk was the son of Kenneth Acile and Melva L. Akers Plunk, grandson of Orvan Orin and Louise Myrtle Haywood Plunk and great-grandson of Elijah C. and Mary Elizabeth Bridges Haywood.  Mary was the fourth child of John William "Buck" and Nancy Adeline Pugh Bridges.  John William was the fourth child of Orren Dates and Mary Elizabeth Hixon Bridges.  Orren was the first child of William and Mary Thomas Bridges.  William was the fourth child of Drury and Charity Cohoon Bridges.  Mary Thomas was the fifth child of James and Mary Standley Thomas.)

Richard A. Thomas - Hotel Executive

Richard A. "Dick" Thomas was born March 19, 1929, to Cyrus B. and Carolyn C. Thomas, of Takoma Park, Maryland. His grandparents were Stanley Thomas, Jr. and Callie May Bennett. He had three siblings, brothers, Stanley and Frank, and a sister, Dorothy. In 1932, the family left Maryland for Florida where Dick attended Mirror Lake Junior High School and St. Petersburg High. Much of his childhood was spent on a small island in nearby Tampa Bay where he hunted, fished and swam, but unknown to most, also caddied at a local golf course, starting at age 10, inspiring a lifelong love of that game. At age 20, Dick moved to Chicago to join the Hilton Hotel Corporation at the largest hotel in the world at the time, the Stevens, renamed the Conrad Hilton a few years later. From that point forward, Dick's career reads like a textbook example of how to succeed in hotel sales and tourism management. As his knowledge increased, responsibilities were expanded and his productivity soared. Dick's initiative, doggedness and charm were not lost on Hilton senior executives, who gave him increasingly daunting posts within their Statler and Biltmore divisions. It was at this time that Dick married and began his family. Continued career success lead to an offer, unrefused, by Carling Dinkler for Dick to become director of sales at Dinkler's renowned Tutwiler property in Birmingham. Dick was summarily boosted to director of sales at Dinkler's flagship Plaza Hotel in Atlanta, where Dick also oversaw sales at all 35 hotels and motels in the Dinkler chain. It was here that he coined his trademark soft-spoken phrase, "Is there anything you need anything I can do for you?" Dick's stability, family orientation and respected professional accomplishments brought him to the attention of the leadership of a city undergoing transformation from vacation-only to a blend of leisure and convention orientations. New Orleans, America's brashest city, recruited one of America's most staid hospitality executives to manage that intimidating task. Within five years, Dick's stewardship of NOLA's convention sales operation brought him once again to the notice of another world-class destination seeking to increase its rank of sustainability within the rooms' reservation scheme. Las Vegas was, at that time, reaching out to the cream of hospitality sales gurus from across the nation to join with hotel and casino executives at already famous resorts aptly named Desert Inn, Caesars Palace, Tropicana, Dunes, Sands, Thunderbird, Frontier, Flamingo and Sahara. Over the next 28 years, Dick found his way into the executive suites of several of those iconic-named properties, settling in at the crown jewel Desert Inn Country Club for close to 20 of those years, and during Las Vegas' most astounding growth and development period. Dick and his wife, Karen, created a marketing management company named Kerat in 1995, and provided sales and convention-related services for the next 11 years at the Holiday Inn Boardwalk hotel and casino. Richard A. Thomas was stalwart in his devotions to family, to profession, to colleagues and to philanthropic associations. He rose to become a SKAL International president in Las Vegas, Statewide Chairman of both the Alabama and Georgia JAYCEES, and a sustaining member in ASAE, MPI, PCMA, SITE, PATA, HSMA and JATA. He was loved and respected in each of his professional avocations.

 

 THE LINEAGE:

(Richard Alfred "Dick" Thomas was the son of Cyrus Bryan and Carolyn Calve Coates Thomas, grandson of Stanley, Jr. and Callie May Bennett Thomas and great grandson of Stanley and Emily Ann Light Thomas.  Stanley was the second child of Starkie and Mary Bridges Thomas.  Starkie was the fourth child James and Mary Standley Thomas.  Mary Bridges was the seventh child of Drury and Charity Cohoon Bridges.)