Tuesday, July 14, 2015

HALL OF FAME #27: EARL AVERILL: CLASS OF 1975

Our next Hall of Fame inductee for the decade is former Cleveland Indians star Earl Averill, who was elected to the halls of Cooperstown in 1975.
Here's my card:


Averill exploded onto the baseball scene as a rookie in 1929, putting together one of the best rookie years of all time: 110 runs scored, 198 hits, 43 doubles, 13 triples, 18 homers, 96 runs batted in and a cool .332 batting average.
And over the following ten seasons he'd continue that hot bat, collecting extra bases along with a solid batting average while consistently driving in runs in Cleveland.
In 1939 he found himself in Detroit, and his career would suddenly shift gears, leaving him to play out his Major League days with the Boston Braves in 1941, as he appeared in only eight games before retiring.
However before he did, he left us with 2019 hits, 401 doubles, 1224 runs scored, 128 triples, 238 home runs, 1164 runs batted in and a nice .318 career average.
All of this in only 10 full seasons with a few partial years thrown in.
Three times he finished in the top-5 for Most Valuable Player, and he was an all-star six straight seasons between 1933-1938.
Some may say he was "borderline" at best for induction, and I'm one of them to be honest, but he definitely put together a very solid career that left him right on that line between "very good" and "all-time legend".
This was reflected in the fact that he never garnered much support from the BBWA in Hall of Fame voting between 1949 and 1962, but he would finally get his due and enter those hallowed doors at the age of 73.