On June 6, 1882, while playing for the Buffalo Bisons, he was fined $10 ($260 today) for slicing open a soggy baseball. He did this to compel the umpire to put a fresh ball in play so his pitcher, Pud Galvin, would be able to throw his curveball.\n', '

In 1883 he was the player-manager for the Philadelphia Quakers. He took the reins of the team after just 14 games, when they were only 4–13 under player-manager Bob Ferguson, and finished the season with an equally dismal 17–81 record. The 8th-place Quakers finished 23 games behind the 7th-place Detroit Wolverines. Purcell never managed another major-league game. He is the first player to get a hit and also score a run in Philadelphia team history, however, doing so in his first AB of the 1883 season.\n', '

Purcell is one of the few players in major-league history whose death is not documented by the Society for American Baseball Research, although according to Find a Grave he has a death date of February 20, 1912, and is buried in Greenmount Cemetery located in Philadelphia.\n', '

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