Rick Ferrell
(Ken: Great picture! Thanks for posting.)
Player #160D: Richard B. "Rick" Ferrell. Catcher for the Washington Senators in 1937-1941, 1944-1945, and 1947. 1,692 hits 28 home runs in 18 MLB seasons. He had a career OBP of .378. 8-time All-Star. Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame. In 1984, was inducted to the MLB Hall of Fame. He debuted with the St. Louis Browns in 1929-1933. His best season may have been 1932 for the Browns as he posted a .406 OBP with 67 runs scored and 65 RBIs in 514 plate appearances. He held the record for most MLB games caught for 40 years until unseated by Carlton Fiske in 1988. First catcher to receive from staff of four K-ball pitchers for the Senators in 1944. He joined the Detroit Tigers as a coach in 1950, became general manager and vice president in 1959, and continued with the Tigers until 1992. During his tenure as a Tigers executive, they won the 1968 and 1984 World Series and AL Eastern Division titles in 1972 and 1987.
We go back to Rick's SABR biography: . . . In 1940, Ferrell caught 99 games for Washington for a .980 fielding average and a .273 batting average. Yet even with Ferrell, Buddy Lewis, Cecil Travis, Sid Hudson and Mickey Vernon on the team, the Senators finished in the second division during Rick’s tenure.
On May 15, 1941, three months after he married Ruth Virginia Wilson, the catcher, 35, was traded back to the St. Louis Browns for pitcher Vern Kennedy. Rick caught 98 games for pitchers like Denny Galehouse, knuckleballer John Niggeling, and Elden Auker. . . .
. . . On August 12, 1984, the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s Veterans Committee inducted Rick, 78, along with shortstop Pee Wee Reese, into the National Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, NY, bringing the ultimate recognition to one of baseball’s quiet, devoted heroes. “I know of no one who deserves the Hall of Fame more than Rick Ferrell,” wrote Detroit Free Press sportswriter Mike Downey in August 1984. “I don’t know how they kept him out for so long,” commented Kell to the Free Press then.
In August 1988 after more than forty years, Ferrell’s American League most-games caught record was broken by Hall of Fame White Sox catcher Carlton Fisk at Tiger Stadium, this time with Rick in the stands to congratulate his successor.
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06-06-2024, 04:16 AM
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