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Posted By: Rhett Yeakley

Bresnahan is in for the same reason you mentioned for Schalk, he was considered by his peers (who were still around then) to be one of the great defensive catchers of his day. Catching around the turn of the century was very different than today, and fielding Pct's of catchers are not always completely accurate. Many a catcher hit right around the Mendoza line at the time, not to mention the fact they were often playing with injuries (usually to hands, etc). It is important to note that hitting for a catcher back in the day was probably more like hitting for a pitcher (but not to quite the same extreme), you needed your catcher to be good at many things, however, hitting was not at the top of that list. It does a disservice to those catchers to compare them to the catchers of today (two totally different animals).
-Rhett