After a stint aboard a battleship as a member of the United States Navy Reserve during World War I, Rico was deactivated and hoped to rejoin the Braves for the 1919 season. He was stricken by a appendicitis early in January 1919, however, and died at the age of 23 of peritonitis resulting from a ruptured appendix shortly after emergency surgery.\n', '

Arthur "Art" Rico was born on July 23, 1895 in Roxbury, Massachusetts. His parents were first-generation immigrants to America, with his mother, the former Margaret Monahan, coming from Scotland as an infant and his father, Antonio Fernando Rico, arriving from Spain in 1877. His father, a prosperous tobacco dealer who owned a plantation in Cuba, died when Art was 14, leaving his family a substantial estate.\n', '

Rico attended English High School in Boston before transferring to the private Huntington School for Boys, where he was a three-sport athlete as a hudler and regional champion shot putter for the track and field squad, a catcher for the baseball team, and a fullback for the football team.\n', '

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