Interesting facts about Pre-War Players - share yours

[jingram058]

Originally Posted by tedzan

Francis Joseph "Lefty" O'Doul is one of my favorite guys in Baseball.
Lefty's career BA is an outstanding .349 over a Major League career that spanned 11 years. His hitting ability is high-lighted by a .398 BA with 254 Hits,
32 HR's, 122 RBI's, while playing for the Phillies in 1929. He followed that up with a .383 BA in 1930.
I could relate a number of interesting stories about Lefty, but I leave it to you to read his SABR write-up...... https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/lefty-odoul/


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TED Z

T206 Reference
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He ought to be in the HoF. Cannot believe he isn't. There are others. We've been through it here, everyone has their opinion. I just feel he and a few others ought to be in.

[cgjackson222]

Harry Stovey was a trailblazing baseball player and a good person. Some of my favorite facts about him:

1) Was the all-time career Home Run king on separate occasions. He surpassed Charley Jones in 1885 when he hit his 46th career Home Run. Though he was surpassed by Dan Brouthers, he later retook the lead in 1889 and became the first player to reach 100 Home Runs the following year.

2) Is one of only three players to have played in a minimum of 1,000 games and averaged more than one run scored per game. Billy Hamilton and George Gore are the others. Stovey scored 1,495 runs in 1,489 games, including nine seasons of 100 or more runs scored.

4) Played on championship teams in 3 Leagues. He won the pennant in 1883 in the American Association, the year he became the first hitter to hit more than 10 Home Runs in a season (14), which was more than five of the seven American Association Teams hit in total. He won a championship in the short-lived Players League with the Boston Reds in 1990. And he won a pennant in 1891 with the Boston Beaneaters.

4) He is credited with inventing sliding pads to protect the often bruised and scraped hips he suffered while sliding on the crudely manicured nineteenth-century fields. He is recognized as one of the first baserunners to slide feet-first into bases and mastering the technique of the pop-up slide, a revolutionary method of going into a base that put added pressure on the defense. However, his aggressive sliding led to many leg injuries (of himself—he did not spike people) during his career.

5) Was born Harry D. Stow but went by Stovey so that his Mom wouldn’t know he was playing baseball if she read a box score in a paper. After he retired from baseball in 1893, he resumed the name Harry Stow, and Harry Stovey ceased to exist. In 1895 he joined the New Bedford police force and served for 28 years. While patrolling his beat along the city’s waterfront one day in 1901, Officer Stow spotted a seven-year-old boy who had fallen between two piers and was struggling in the water. He dived in and saved the boy’s life. Soon afterward he was promoted to sergeant for bravery and became a captain in 1915.

[doug.goodman]

While researching my m113 Phillies team tonight I discovered that there was a player who's actual given name was Bud Weiser.

I think that it itself is an interesting fact, but here's some other stuff :
https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/Bud-Weiser/

Oh, and the m113 is the 1915 Team, due to Beals Becker being in the picture, and I think the existence of a 1916 Phillies team m113 (or m114) is a mistake in the Standard Catalog.

[mrreality68]

Wow some amazing history being brought to life.

Love the history of baseball

Keep them coming

[David W]

Austin McHenry and Bill Delancey were Cardinal rising stars in the 1920's and 30's. McHenry died at age 26 from a brain tumor, and Delancey got TB at age 23, dying at age 35.

Branch Rickey said Delancey was one of the 3 greatest catchers of all time.

I have both of these cards, but not scanned, pulled these off of EBAY.