Washington DC Baseball

[GeoPoto]

(Mike: Thank you for the kind words and great images.)

Player #160B: 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'll use Rick's SABR biography to highlight his career and time with Washington: Hall of Fame catcher Rick Ferrell (1905-1995) caught in the American League for eighteen years (1929-45,’47) during two of America’s most challenging periods: the Great Depression and World War II. Playing for the St. Louis Browns, Boston Red Sox, and Washington Senators, his skill as a durable knuckleball catcher with a laser-accurate arm for picking off potential base-stealers was held in high regard. His .378 career on-base percentage is eighth, all-time, among 50 catchers with 3000 at-bats, according to www.sabr.org, and fourth among the thirteen major league Hall of Fame catchers, bested only by Mickey Cochrane (.419), Roger Bresnahan (.386), and Bill Dickey (.382). . . .

. . . During the 1930s, Rick became one of several major league catching stars that included Mickey Cochrane, Bill Dickey, Al Lopez, Ernie Lombardi, and Gabby Hartnett. On May 10, 1933, young Boston Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey purchased Ferrell from the fiscally strapped Browns with southpaw Lloyd Brown for catcher Merv Shea plus cash estimated at between $50,000 and $100,000. From 1929-early 1933 with the Browns, Rick had hit .289 in 430 games.

With the east coast Boston Red Sox, the catcher enjoyed his best years, catching and hitting well. Two months later on July 6, 1933, Connie Mack chose Rick to catch the entire inaugural All-Star Game. The American League team, consisting of such luminaries as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, All Simmons, Charlie Gehringer, and Lefty Grove, beat the National League, 4-2. Rick was selected to a grand total of eight All-Star teams (1933-38, 1944-45; no game in 1945 because of wartime travel restrictions).

When Cleveland and his brother Wes played against Boston two weeks later on July 19, 1933, Rick homered off Wes, after which Wes homered off Boston’s Hank Johnson, marking the first time brothers on opposing teams had homered in the same game. They taunted each other about their home runs during the game and went out for a steak dinner afterwards. Rick caught a career-high 137 games in 1933. . . . (We'll pick this up when Rick next appears.)