Tuesday Trivia: A hitting (and sliding) pioneer

[cgjackson222]

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

[Cliff Bowman]

Frank ‘Home Run’ Baker?

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by Cliff Bowman

Frank ‘Home Run’ Baker?

Good guess, but its someone else.

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

[Jim65]

Is it Harry Stovey?

[BobC]

Thought it was Buck Ewing.

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by BobC

Thought it was Buck Ewing.

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.

[BobC]

.

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by Jim65

Is it Harry Stovey?

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.

[G1911]

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.

[JollyElm]

Originally Posted by cgjackson222

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.

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