Executive
Executive
Primary Team Or Role
Birth year
The history of the National Pastime in the nation’s capital cannot be told without acknowledging Clark Griffith, a legendary player, manager and executive whose life in baseball spanned nearly 70 years.
Born to a pioneer family and struck with a chronic illness as a child, Griffith fought his way onto minor league teams as a pitcher. Sporting a frail physique, Griffith relied on guile and masterful control instead of power on the mound, earning himself a nickname as the “Old Fox.”
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2nd Baseman
2nd Baseman
Games
Birth year
At 5-foot-9 and 125 pounds, Johnny Evers wasn’t built to hit home runs.
Instead, the acrobatic Evers used his impressive knowledge of the rules and his scrappy, determined style of play to lead his teams to five National League pennants and three World Series titles in the first years of the 20th Century.
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Pitcher
Pitcher
Games
Birth year
A 20-win season remains the standard for big league pitchers.
But in 1904, Jack Chesbro doubled that number by himself when he won a modern era record 41 games during one of the finest seasons of any pitcher in the history of the game. It was the crowning season of a pitcher whose career numbers added up to a place in Cooperstown.
1st Baseman
1st Baseman
Games
Birth year
Few men in the history of baseball have seen great success as a player and as a manager. Frank Chance was one of them.
But Chance’s most enduring legacy – despite his success on the field and in the dugout – has been as the subject of the most celebrated baseball poem ever written.
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Left Fielder
Left Fielder
Games
Birth year
The .400 batting average remains the domain of only the greatest hitters baseball has known.
Jesse Burkett visited that rarefied air twice in his career, helping him lay claim to the title as one of baseball’s best hitters.
Born Dec. 4, 1868, in Wheeling, W.Va., Burkett made his pro baseball debut in 1888 as a pitcher, winning 27 games for a minor league team in Scranton, Pa. The next season, Burkett went 39-6 for a team in Worcester, Mass., then surfaced in the big leagues in 1890 with the New York Giants.
Right Fielder
Right Fielder
Games
Birth year
Tommy McCarthy is most famous for his time with the Boston Beaneaters, when he teamed up with Hugh Duffy to form the “Heavenly Twins” from 1892-1895.
McCarthy and Duffy were close friends and won two National League titles together.
McCarthy is given credit for developing the hit-and-run while playing with the Beaneaters. He also is heralded as a pioneer in trapping balls in the outfield in an effort to trick opposing base runners.
Pitcher
Pitcher
Games
Birth year
"He had more stuff than any pitcher I ever saw," legendary manager Connie Mack once said about Rube Waddell.
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Pitcher
Pitcher
Games
Birth year
While Joe McGinnity didn’t reach the major leagues until he was 28 years old, he became an immediate star upon his arrival.
In each of his first eight seasons, McGinnity won at least 20 games and twice won more than 30. He led all of baseball in victories four times in his career and lived up to his “Iron Man” nickname as well. McGinnity averaged 344 innings a season during his career, twice throwing more than 400 innings.
Pitcher
Pitcher
Games
Birth year
"Big Ed Walsh. Great big, strong, good-looking fellow," Hall of Famer Sam Crawford said. "He threw a spitball. I think that ball disintegrated on the way to the plate, and the catcher put it back together again. I swear, when it went past the plate, it was just the spit went by."
Two achievements in particular speak to right-hander Ed Walsh's dominance of opposing batters at the turn of the 20th century: His lifetime ERA of 1.82, the lowest of all time, and his 40-win season for the 1908 Chicago White Sox.
Shortstop
Shortstop
Games
Birth year
"These are the saddest of possible words: Tinker to Evers to Chance.”
You didn’t have to follow baseball to know this poem, entitled “Baseball’s Sad Lexicon.” Franklin P. Adams published it in 1910 in the New York Evening Mail, and even though it was one of a series of poems Adams would write, it quickly took its place with “Casey at the Bat” and “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” as part of the pop culture that seemed to draw Americans to baseball.
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