High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles Joseph Hurst Ball (November 3, 1905 - December 18, 1993) was a newspaper reporter who became a United States Senator at the age of 35, as the result of an accident. When Minnesota's U.S. Senator Ernest Lundeen was killed in a plane crash on August 31, 1940, Ball was the surprise appointment to fill the unexpired term. Ball went on to win a six-year term of office in his own right in the 1942 election.