Baseball Trailblazers by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

.627.

Hornsby raised his average to .424 in 1924, which is the fourth highest batting average in a single season in major league baseball history. He led the league with 89 walks, producing a

.507 on-base percentage, a National League record for over 75

years. His slugging percentage of .696 again led the league, as did his 121 runs scored, 227 hits, and 43 doubles. He hit 25

home runs as well. That year, the NL reintroduced its Most Valuable Player award. Although Hornsby was expected to win the award, it went to Dazzy Vance instead. Cincinnati voter Jack Ryder left Hornsby's name off his ballot altogether because he believed Hornsby was an MVP on the stat sheet, but was not a team player. In 1962, the Baseball Writers' Association of America presented Hornsby with an award retroactively recognizing him as the 1924 MVP.

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In 1925, Sam Breadon, the owner of the Cardinals, wished to replace Rickey as manager. Hornsby initially declined the job.

After discovering that Rickey planned to sell his stock in the Cardinals if he was replaced as field manager, Hornsby agreed to take the job as long as Breadon would help him purchase the stock. Breadon agreed, and Hornsby became the Cardinals'

manager. Hornsby finished the year with his second Triple Crown, when he combined a .403 batting average with 39 home runs and 143 RBIs in 138 games. He bested teammate Jim Bottomley in the batting title race by nearly 40 points. His 1925 batting average has not been matched by any National Leaguer since. That year, he won the MVP Award, receiving 73 out of 80 possible votes. His

.756 slugging percentage and 1.245 on base plus slugging set National League records that stood until 2001. The Cardinals finished in fourth place in 1925, finishing one game over .500, though the team won 64 games and lost 51 under Hornsby. During the year, his wife Jeanette had a son, Billy.

Hornsby had an off year offensively in 1926, as he hit only .317

with 11 home runs. Nonetheless, St. Louis won its first NL

pennant. In the 1926 World Series, the Cardinals defeated the Yankees in a seven game series. Hornsby tagged out Babe Ruth on a stolen base attempt, ending the Series and making the Cardinals world champions of baseball. It would also be the only

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time in Hornsby's long career that he would be part of a world champion. In the series, Hornsby batted .250, with one extra base hit and 4 RBIs. Years later, Hornsby said that his tag of Ruth was the biggest thrill of his career.

During post season negotiations for a new contract, Hornsby demanded $50,000 per year for three years. Breadon agreed to a one year contract for $50,000, with the stipulation that Hornsby stay away from the track. When Hornsby refused to give way, the Cardinals traded him to the New York Giants for Frankie Frisch and Jimmy Ring on December 20, 1926. Indeed, Breadon had lost patience with Hornsby, even though he'd led the Cardinals to their first undisputed world title. He'd already arranged to send him to New York if contract talks fell through. Later, Breadon said he so wanted to part ways with Hornsby that he was afraid Hornsby would call his bluff and take the one year deal.

The trade was briefly postponed as NL president John Heydler stated that Hornsby could not play for the Giants while he held stock in the Cardinals. Hornsby wanted $105 per share for his stock, a price Breadon was unwilling to pay. In early 1927, Hornsby was able to sell his shares at $105 each, enabling him to officially become a Giant.

Hornsby enjoyed a better season in 1927, as he hit .361 and led the league in runs scored, walks, and on base percentage. He was

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a player-coach, and managed the Giants for part of the year after John McGraw briefly stood down due to sinusitis. Hornsby's performance helped guide the Giants to a 92–62 win–loss record during the season, which was good enough for third place in the NL. McGraw was initially overjoyed to finally get Hornsby, having sought to trade for him at least as early as 1920.

However, their relationship quickly soured due to Hornsby's overbearing personality. Additionally, his gambling problems at the race track and distrust of Giants' management annoyed team owner Charles Stoneham. During the offseason he was traded to the Boston Braves for Jimmy Welsh and Shanty Hogan.

With the Boston Braves in 1928, Hornsby was again the league's most productive hitter. He won his seventh batting title with a

.387 average, and also led the league in on base percentage, slugging percentage, and walks. One month into the season, manager Jack Slattery resigned, and the Braves hired Hornsby to be his replacement. The Braves, however, lost 103 games and finished in seventh place out of eight teams in the NL. They were also struggling financially, and when the Chicago Cubs offered $200,000 and five players for Hornsby, the Braves found the offer too good to pass up. Indeed, Hornsby was well aware of the Braves' financial struggles and actually encouraged Braves owner Emil Fuchs to trade him to Chicago.

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Hornsby hit .380 for Chicago in 1929 while recording 39 home runs and a league leading .679 slugging percentage. His 156 runs scored led the major leagues and is still the team record while his .380 batting average was the highest for a Cub since 1895.

He also collected another MVP award, and the Cubs won the NL

pennant. However, they lost in the 1929 World Series to the Philadelphia Athletics in five games, as Hornsby batted .238

with one RBI. He also set a World Series record for strikeouts with eight.

After the first two months of the 1930 season, Hornsby was batting .325 with two home runs. In the first game of a doubleheader against the Cardinals, Hornsby broke his ankle while advancing to third base. He did not return until August 19, and he was used mostly as a pinch hitter for the rest of the season. With four games to go in the season, the Cubs fired manager Joe McCarthy, replacing him with Hornsby. Although there were longstanding rumors Hornsby had actively undermined McCarthy, Hornsby adamantly denied this; in fact. He and McCarthy were very close friends. Hornsby finished the year with a .308 batting average and two home runs.

On April 24, 1931, Hornsby hit three home runs and drove in eight runs in a 10–6 victory over Pittsburgh. Hornsby played in 44 of the first 48 games, but after a “disappointing”

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performance he only played himself about half the time for the rest of the year. In 100 games, he had 90 RBIs, 37 doubles, and a batting average of .331. He also led the league in on base percentage for the ninth time in his career. The team finished 84–70, 17 games back of the pennant winning Cardinals, and four games back of the Giants.

Hornsby was bothered by boils on his feet during the start of the 1932 season, which kept him out of the lineup until May 29.

Hornsby played right field from May 29 to June 10, appeared in two games as a pinch hitter, played third base from July 14

through July 18, and played one last game as a Cub when he pinch hit on July 31.

Cubs president William Veeck Sr. had never liked the idea of Hornsby as a manager. Indeed, he briefly resigned when principal owner William Wrigley, Jr. ousted McCarthy in his favor. Over the next year and a half, Veeck grew increasingly dissatisfied with Hornsby, believing his autocratic managing style hurt team morale. Veeck was particularly angered when Hornsby disagreed with an umpire's call, but sent another player out to argue the call. That player was ejected from the game. Veeck believed Hornsby breached an unwritten rule of baseball which called for the manager to argue calls himself. On August 2, although the Cubs were in second place, Veeck fired Hornsby as manager and

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released him as a player. First baseman Charlie Grimm took over as manager for the rest of the season. Hornsby had played 19

games, batting .224 with one home run and seven RBIs. Although the Cubs advanced to the 1932 World Series, the players voted not to give Hornsby a share of World Series money.

Hornsby did not play for the rest of 1932, but the Cardinals signed him as a player on October 24 for the 1933 season.

Breadon put aside his previous disputes with Hornsby and brought him back to St. Louis, knowing that Hornsby could still handle a bat. He played regularly at second base from April 25 through May 5 in what would be his last non-cameo appearances as a player. After May 5, the Cardinals used him mostly as a pinch hitter due to numerous foot and leg problems. On July 22, he had his final NL hit in a 9–5 loss to the Braves. Through July 23, Hornsby was batting .325 with two home runs and 21 RBIs.

However, that day, the Cardinals waived him. By this time, the Cardinals were in fifth place and long out of the pennant race, and Breadon was concerned that Hornsby was no longer able to play regularly.

Hornsby was claimed by the last place St. Louis Browns of the American League on July 26. The Browns immediately named him player-manager. Bill Killefer had just resigned as Browns manager, and Browns owner Phil Ball wanted Hornsby as a

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replacement. It would be one of Ball's last acts before his death in October. Hornsby appeared in 11 games for the Browns.

He had three hits, including a home run, in nine at bats. The Browns finished in last place in the AL. That year, Hornsby began operating a baseball school in Hot Springs, Arkansas, which he ran on and off between 1933 and 1951 with various associates.

In 1934, Hornsby appeared in 24 games, but started only two of them, one at third base, and the other in right field. In all of his other appearances, he was a pinch hitter. For the season, he batted .304 with one home run and 11 RBIs. The Browns improved on their previous season, finishing in sixth place out of eight teams in the AL.

Hornsby played in 10 games in the 1935 season, starting in 4, from April 16 through April 21. He finished the year with five hits and a .208 average, while the Browns slipped to seventh place. The regression came in part because Ball's estate, which was running the Browns pending a sale, refused to infuse badly needed capital into the team. The Browns had to sell promising players in order to pay the bills; a pattern that would continue throughout Hornsby's tenure with the Browns.

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Hornsby only appeared in two games with the team during the 1936

season. On May 31, his pinch hit single in the ninth inning gave the Browns an 11–10 win over the Detroit Tigers. In his other appearance on June 9, he played first base in a 5–3 win over the Yankees. The Browns again finished in seventh place. After the season, Hornsby publicly decried his team's lack of talent. He also claimed Ball's estate made it difficult to enforce discipline.

In the winter of 1936, the Ball estate sold the Browns to Donald Lee Barnes, who retained Hornsby as manager on Rickey's advice.

In 1937, Hornsby played in 20 games. On April 21, in his first game of the year, Hornsby hit the final home run of his career in a 15–10 victory over the Chicago White Sox. On July 5, he had the final hit of his career in a 15–4 loss in the second game of a doubleheader with the Cleveland Indians.

On July 20, Hornsby appeared in what would be his final game, a 5–4 loss to the Yankees. A day later, Hornsby was fired as manager and released as a player by the Browns, who were in last place at the time of his release. Hornsby finished the 1937

season with a .321 batting average and 18 hits in 20 games, and was the oldest player in the AL.

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Following his release from the Browns, Hornsby was unable to retire because he had lost so much money gambling over the years. He signed as a player-coach with the Baltimore Orioles of the International League in 1938 before leaving them to play for and manage the Chattanooga Lookouts of the Southern Association for the rest of the season. Hornsby then returned to the Orioles to manage them for 1939, but he did not return to the club following the season.

Halfway through 1940, he signed to manage the Oklahoma City Indians of the Texas League. He led them from last place to the Texas League playoffs, where they fell to the Houston Buffaloes in four games. Hornsby began 1941 managing the Indians once again, but he resigned in the middle of the season. In November, he became the general and field manager of the Fort Worth Cats, also of the Texas league. Fort Worth finished in third place and made the playoffs in 1942, but they were eliminated in the first round by the Shreveport Sports. The league decided to suspend operations for the duration of World War II in 1943.

In February 1944 Hornsby signed as a player-manager with the Veracruz Blues of the Mexican League for the coming season.

Hornsby won two games inserting himself as a pinch hitter in the ninth inning, including one occasion in which he drove in three runs with a bases loaded double. His tenure in Mexico ended

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after only nine days, however, owing to financial differences with team owner Jorge Pasquel. Hornsby announced; "I'm perfectly willing to keep my own agreements if the other fellow keeps his, but in this case it's hopeless. I found out that I'd even have to pay my expenses on road trips, and that's unheard of. The management finally consented to pay my expenses but there were many other matters to iron out. I finally gave up.” Hornsby indicated plans to return to Fort Worth, Texas.

Following his return to the United States, Hornsby spent 1945

out of baseball for the first time in over three decades. There were rumors that Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis had informally blackballed him from the majors because of his persistent gambling. However, Hornsby had a long wait to get another major league job even after Landis died in November 1944. He did some commentary for radio station WTMV, served as a spring training hitting instructor for the Chicago White Sox in 1946 and the Cleveland Indians in 1947, and became a TV

announcer for Chicago Cubs games in 1949.

Hornsby did not become a manager or coach again until 1950, when he was hired to manage the Texas League's Beaumont Roughnecks.

Beaumont won the pennant, but they were swept in the first round of the playoffs by the San Antonio Missions. The next year, in 1951, Hornsby managed the Seattle Rainiers of the Pacific Coast

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League. Under Hornsby's leadership, the Rainiers won the pennant.

With Hornsby's success in Beaumont and Seattle, both of St.

Louis' major league teams offered him three year contracts. He decided to return to the Browns, apparently believing there was a greater upside to rebuilding a perennial loser than there was to managing a perennial contender. The Browns' owner, Bill Veeck, was the son of former Cubs president William Veeck Sr.

Hornsby was not well received by the players, however. He reportedly only spoke to a player to criticize him. As the season wore on and the losses piled up, Hornsby's fuse became even shorter.

On June 9, he was fired due to a disagreement with Veeck over an incident against the Yankees the day before. During the game, a fan prevented Gil McDougald of the Yankees from catching a fly ball, and the umpire ruled that it was fan interference. Hornsby did not initially argue the call, only coming out of the dugout on orders from Veeck, when it was already too late to do anything about it. This led to Hornsby and the Browns parting ways. The Browns players were so happy about Hornsby's firing that they gave Veeck an engraved trophy to thank him.

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A little over a month later, on July 26, Hornsby was hired to replace Luke Sewell as manager of the Cincinnati Reds. The Reds went 27-23 for the rest of the season. However, late in a lackluster 1953 season, the Reds announced that he would not return for 1954. He resigned with eight games to go in the season, and coach Buster Mills replaced him. He finished his major league baseball managerial career with a record of 701–