Sunday, November 3, 2024

WTHBALLS CUSTOM SET SPOTLIGHT: 1890 "BASEBALL CHAMPIONS" WILLIE KEELER

On the blog today, my "19th Century Base Ball Champions" card for the great Willie Keeler, fellow Brooklynite and one of the greatest hitters for average the game has ever seen:





"Wee Willie" was one of those players whose career jumped out at me when I was a 10-year-old with my first Macmillan Baseball Encyclopedia, seeing his stats for the first time, being blown away.
First off, his eight straight seasons of 200+ hits was unsurpassed until a man by the name of Ichiro came along, with Keeler collecting as many as 239 hits in 1897 and hitting as high as .424 that very same year.
Between 1892 and 1906 he never hit below .300, taking home two batting titles while scoring 100+ runs a year eight straight seasons, with a high of 165 in 1894 with the Baltimore Orioles.
By the time he hung up the spikes after the 1910 season, he finished with a .341 average, with 2932 hits, 1719 runs scored and 495 stolen bases, incredibly striking out only 136 times over 9619 plate appearances!
That is an AVERAGE of only seven strikeouts per season over his career!
Just an amazing career that led to him being one of the first players selected for the Hall of Fame, which happened in 1939 when he was named on 207 of 274 ballots cast.
One of baseball's early historical figures, he passed away on New Years, 1923, only 50 years of age.
"Hit 'em where they ain't"!

 

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