Tuesday Trivia: A hitting (and sliding) pioneer
 

Name the first person to hit double digit Home Runs in a season?

Frank ‘Home Run’ Baker?

Good guess, but its someone else.

Clue #1: He is also the first player to reach 100 career Home Runs.

Is it Harry Stovey?

Thought it was Buck Ewing.

.

I thought this one was going to be harder, but Harry Stovey is correct!

Here are some more facts about Harry Stovey:

1) 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.

2) Was the all-time career Home Run king on separate occasions: he surpassed Charley Jones on August 11, 1885 when he hit his 46th career Home Run. He was surpassed by Dan Brouthers, when Brouthers hit is 59th on June 29, 1887, but he later retook the lead from Brouthers on August 13, 1889 (although it is somehow unknown exactly how many career Home Runs Stovey had). Roger Connor would surpass Stovey on June 23, 1895, when Connor hit his 123rd.

3) 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 double digit Home Runs (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.

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.

6) Led his League in many categories during his career including Runs (4x), Doubles, Triples (4x), Home Runs (5x), RBI, Stolen Bases (2x even though it was not a statistic during his first six years), Slugging (3x) and Total Bases (3x). His career OPS+ of 144 has him tied with Sam Crawford, Albert Belle, and Hack Wilson, and ahead of Eddie Collins, Eddie Mathews, and Cap Anson.

7) Hit 3 triples in a game twice.

8) In 1936 he received six votes for the Hall of fame, the only year he appeared on the ballot. He outpolled both Kid Nichols and Jim O’Rourke, both of whom were later inducted into Cooperstown. In 1983 a poll of SABR’s nineteenth century research committee voted Stovey and Pete Browning as the two players of that era most deserving to be in the Hall that had yet to be elected.

In 1883, Charley Jones also hit double digit home runs.

Stovey is oft cited as a possible hall of fame candidate (shame he never gets serious consideration by the actual hall voters), but Jones is completely forgotten. His rate statistics were superstar level, even if he didn't play enough to make HOF candidate lists. He played even better in the NL than the AA.

For some reason historians seem to give credit to Stovey for being the first player to hit double digit Home Runs in a season, rather than Jones. It may be because Stovey accomplished the feat earlier in the season, as he hit 4 more Home Runs than Jones (14 to 10), but that is just speculation.

Jones is definitely an interesting figure. His career OPS+ of 150 ranks higher than players like Mike Schmidt, Jim Thome or Sam Thompson. But his career was short, partly because he refused to play after the 1880 season, claiming he had not been paid by the Boston Red Stockings, and suing for his salary. A jury sided with the club and the team had him blacklisted for 1881 and 1882.

Jones is also the first person to hit two Home Runs in the same inning, which he did in 1880. He would only hit 3 other Home Runs that year.

Jones' career numbers are not strong, having just over 1,115 hits and 733 Runs in 3,741 at bats and 895 games.

Looks like Buck Ewing, like Charley Jones, also hit 10 Home Runs in 1883. So I guess 3 players achieved the feat, with Harry Stovey being the first chronologically. I should have mentioned that 3 players achieved it for the first time in the same year.

Wow!! Nothing characterizes serious baseball skill more than the ability to bring home a championship as your 134th birthday approaches!!! :D:D:D

Stovey's autograph is rarely seen.
 

Here's an excerpt from Stovey's page on CooperstownExpert.com. The page can be accessed by clicking here.

Harry Stovey belongs in the Hall of Fame. That’s plain and simple. His statistics support his inclusion as do his innovations, inventions, and career narrative. Stovey has it all.

On BaseballReference.com’s statistical player pages, the league-leading numbers are listed in bold black ink. Near the bottom of each player’s page, there is a section called, “Hall of Fame Standards”. The first statistical measurement is called, “Black Ink“.

The formula awards points for topping the league in a statistical category. Four points are given for when a player leads his league home runs, RBI or batting average, three points for runs scored, hits or slugging percentage, two points for doubles, walks or stolen bases, and one point for games, at bats or triples.

The average Black Ink score for members already inducted into the Hall of Fame is 27. Stovey’s total is 56 which puts him 28th all-time. Among those who fall below Stovey’s score of 56 are no-doubt Hall of Famers Carl Yastrzemski (55), Rickey Henderson (50), Mel Ott (50), Albert Pujols (45), Miguel Cabrera (43), and a host of other Cooperstown men.

Immediately after the Black Ink listing is Gray Ink. That method takes top-ten finishes into account. Points are award similarly as the Black Ink. The average score of all hitters in the Hall is 144. Stovey far surpasses that with a 210 total. Only 45 men in history scored higher.

Detractors of Stovey’s Hall of Fame case point to his career counting numbers and WAR total. However, context always matters, and in Stovey’s case more than most.

WAR and career totals heavily depend on the number of games played. During his day, teams played an abbreviated schedule. In the first four years of his career, Stovey’s teams never played in as many as 100 games. Over the course of his 14-year big league career, Stovey’s teams averaged less than 120 games per season.

Stovey’s squads played 73.9% of the games of the modern schedule. Looking at it another way, in 14 seasons of today’s schedule, he would’ve appeared in 26.1% more games – that’s about 3 2/3 more seasons.

Additionally, Stovey’s 509 steals are among the most of his era despite the statistical lapses that keep him from getting credit for even a single stolen base in his first six seasons. Those numbers simply aren’t available.

Stovey’s case for Cooperstown is buoyed by his innovations regarding the foot-first and pop-up slides as well as the invention of the sliding pads worn under the uniform. Establishing MLB’s single-season home run mark and holding the career record for 8 seasons round out his narrative. Harry Stovey is one of a handful of men to retire as the game’s all-time home run leader.

The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) agrees. In 2009 the organization began identifying the most under-appreciated men from the 1800s. Their choice for Overlooked 19th Century Baseball Legend for 2009 was Pete Browning who has quite a case for the Hall himself. In 201o they selected Deacon White who was voted into Cooperstown three years later. Choosing from all the players from the 19th century not in Cooperstown, SABR chose Stovey as their man in 2011.

Harry Stovey clearly performed at a Hall of Fame level throughout his career. He dominated the game, set records, and contributed innovations and invention in the game’s earliest professional days.

His omission from Cooperstown needs to be rectified.

The 1932 pass shows the facsimile signature of Red Sox team president Bob Quinn in his final year as owner of the team. The pass below that shows Quinn’s successor, 30-year old Tom Yawkey in his first year at the helm of the Sox. Both passed are adorned with the exceedingly rare signature of 1800s home run king Harry Stovey