Up on the blog today, we come to my custom card for the great Ed
Delahanty, from my early custom "19th Century Base Ball Stars" set
released many moons ago:
Beautiful portrait of
the Hall of Famer, who put in 16 years in the Majors and tragically had
his career cut short after passing away in a freak accident that saw him
fall to his death after wandering on to the Niagara Falls bridge in a
drunken state on July 2nd, 1903.
One of FIVE professional
baseball brothers, Ed hit a tremendous .346 over his career, with 2597
hits in 7510 at-bats between 1888 and 1903, winning two batting titles
and hitting .400+ three times, with four 200+ hit seasons, seven 100+
RBIs and 10 100+ run campaigns.
Incredibly, in 1894 with the
Philadelphia Phillies, he was part of a starting outfield that saw each
man hit over .400, with Delahanty at .405, Sam Thompson at .415, and
Billy Hamilton at .403, while Tuck Turner, the reserve fourth
outfielder, hit .418 over 382 plate appearances! Just amazing.
That starting outfield all would eventually make it to the Hall of Fame years later, and rightly so!
For
his career, Delahanty also finished with 1600 runs scored, 522 doubles,
186 triples, 101 homers and 1466 RBIs, with a .411 on-base-percentage
and .505 slugging, stealing 456 bases.
In 1945 he'd be selected for the Hall of Fame by the "Old Timers Committee", now knows as the Veterans Committee.
Incredible
baseball player who sadly met a tragic end to his career, but most
importantly his life on that day in 1903 at the age of 35.
