Athletes - Sam Crawford

Home > Listing Index > Athletes > Sam Crawford

	Athletes - Sam Crawford

: For the Union general in the American Civil War, see Samuel W. Crawford

Samuel Earl "Wahoo" Sam Crawford (April 18, 1880 – June 15, 1968) was a professional American baseball player, primarily playing as a right fielder for the Detroit Tigers. He batted and threw left handed, standing 6'0" tall and weighing 190 pounds. His nickname comes from his birthplace, Wahoo, Nebraska.

Professional playing career

Crawford played 19 big league seasons, starting his career in 1899 with the Cincinnati Redstockings, before jumping to the newly founded American League's Detroit Tigers in 1903, where he finished out his career.

Crawford twice led the major leagues in home runs, hitting 16 in 1901 and 7 in 1908. He still maintains the major league record for the most inside-the-park home runs in a season with 12 in 1901, and the most in a career with 51.

Crawford also holds the career major league record for triples with 309, a record unlikely to be beaten given the difference in the style of baseball played in the modern era compared to that of the dead-ball era of Crawford. When he retired, he had a career batting average of .309. Crawford fell just short of the magical 3000 hit club, compiling 2961. There has been debate about whether Wahoo Sam deserves inclusion in the 3,000 hit club. Crawford maintained that the 87 hits he got in the Western League, which became the American League in 1900, were supposed to be included in his official total under the 1903 agreement between the two leagues.

He played twelve years in the same outfield with Ty Cobb, accompanying him to the 1907, 1908, and 1909 World Series, falling to Honus Wagner's Pittsburgh Pirates in 1909 in seven games.

Post professional career

In retirement, he became somewhat reclusive, staying away from official baseball functions. In 1962, he was interviewed by Lawrence Ritter for his book The Glory of Their Times, a series of interviews with the players of the early 20th Century. Crawford's tales of Tiger teammates such as Cobb, Cincinnati teammates like deaf player William "Dummy" Hoy, and opponents such as Wagner helped to make the book one of the most admired ever written about baseball.

He was selected by the Veteran's Committee to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1957. He was inducted into the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame in 1968. On his passing in 1968, Sam Crawford was interred in the Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California. In 1999, he ranked Number 84 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was nominated as a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Sam Crawford ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Sam Crawford; 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 - Sam Crawford

Professional playing career

Post professional career

Searches on eBay

Related searches on eBay