Athletes - Hal Trosky

Home > Listing Index > Athletes > Hal Trosky

	Athletes - Hal Trosky

Harold Arthur Trosky, born Harold Arthur Trojovsky (November 11, 1912 - June 18, 1979), was an American first baseman in Major League Baseball for the Cleveland Indians (1933-1941) and the Chicago White Sox (1944, 1946). Trosky was born in Norway, Iowa. He batted left-handed, and threw right-handed.

In 5161 career at bats, Trosky had a career .302 batting average, with a career high of .343 in 1936. He hit 228 career home runs and had 1012 RBIs. He had 1561 career hits. His 216 HRs with the Indians puts him 2nd on the team's all-time list, behind Earl Averill.

His 1936 season was considered truly outstanding, especially considering his power numbers (42 HR, 162 RBIs, .644 slugging percentage) and the time in which he did it. He was also noted for leading a team of players in 1940 to try to get his manager, Oscar Vitt, removed.

After retiring, he worked as a scout for the White Sox.

Trosky died of a heart ailment in Cedar Rapids, Iowa at the age of 66.

Hal Trosky was a slugging first baseman for the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago White Sox in the 1930s and 1940s. His career was highlighted by his 1936 season, in which he led the American League in Runs Batted In with 162, but he has been consigned to relative obscurity due to his playing at the same time as the greatest triumvirate of first basemen ever assembled (Jimmie Foxx, Hank Greenberg, and Lou Gehrig).

Born Harold Arthur, he arrived on November 11, 1912, to John and Mary (nee Siepman) Trojovsky. The family, second-generation immigrants from the region of Germany called Bohemia, moved to their 420-acre farm outside Norway, Iowa, in 1917.

In the summer of 1930, Hal signed his first contract as Harold Trojovsky, but from then on he changed the name to ‘Trosky’. Hal’s siblings eventually also chose the shorter “Trosky” for convenience in their own lives.

Trosky reported to the Cedar Rapids Bunnies in early 1931, playing for a $65.00 monthly salary. He closed out the year having played in a total of 52 Mississippi Valley League games. In 162 at-bats, he managed 49 hits (including 3 home runs) for a respectable .302 batting average. He followed that mark in 1932 by hitting .307 in 56 games in the 3-I league, first with Springfield (and, after that team folded, with Burlington), and then .331 after promotion to Quincy. His 15 home runs in 68 games with Quincy attracted attention up in the Cleveland organization, and in 1933 Hal Trosky began the season as a $200.00-a-month player with the Toledo Mud Hens of the American Association.

At the close of the Mud Hen’s season, Cleveland finally called. On September 11th, 1933, Hal Trosky started at first in place of Harley Boss. In 44 at-bats that month, spread over 11 games, Hal hit .295, with a double and two triples, and drove in eight runs.

1934, his first full year in the major leagues, was nothing short of spectacular. Hal played every inning of all 154 games, hit .330 with 35 home runs (at the time the fifth highest total every by a first-year player), drove in 142 runners, and posted a slugging average of .598. He finished seventh in balloting for American League Most Valuable Player (even Triple-Crown winner Lou Gehrig could muster no better than fifth place in the vote).

Hal Trosky returned to baseball in 1935, renewed after a winter in Iowa and bolstered by a $1,000 raise. An unusual event occurred on September 15th, as Trosky suffered through a slump. Steve O’Neill suggested he try hitting from the other side of the plate, so the next day, against the Senators, Hal came up in the first inning and took a right-handed stance. He stunned his teammates by lacing a single. After a left-handed out in the fifth inning, he hit from the right side again in the eighth and cracked a shot into the distant reaches of Griffith Stadium’s left field for his 23rd home run of the year. It was quite a blow, considering that the left field foul line stretched 405 feet between fence and home plate. Overall, in the double header, Trosky punched five hits in ten at-bats from both sides of the plate. Three singles and the home run came right handed, and one long double flew from the left side.

The sophomore season closed with Trosky again driving in over 100 runs and finishing fifth in the home run race with 26. The winter following the 1935 season brought some even better news: despite his slight decline in batting production the previous season, Hal was given a salary raise to $7,000 per year.

In 1936, the ‘1934 model’ Hal Trosky returned. A mid-June spell in Lakeside Hospital caused him to miss his only three games of the year. He was hospitalized as a result of a clot in his leg that developed following a batting practice accident in which he drove a pitch directly off his shin. Quietly, in mid-season, Trosky put together a nice little hitting streak, which grew to 22 straight games by July 27th and began to draw attention in the papers outside of Cleveland. On August 3rd, though, the streak finally ended at 28 straight games.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Hal Trosky ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Hal Trosky; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Athletes - Hal Trosky

Searches on eBay

Related searches on eBay