Freddie Lindstrom

Who was Freddie Lindstrom?

Frederick Charles Lindstrom was a National League baseball player with the New York Giants, Pittsburgh Pirates, Chicago Cubs and Brooklyn Dodgers from 1924 until 1936. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1976.

At the age of 23, Lindstrom hit .358 for the Giants and was named The Sporting News Major League All Star team’s third baseman ahead of Pittsburgh’s Harold “Pie” Traynor. Two years later, he repeated the honor while scoring 127 runs and batting .379, second only to Rogers Hornsby among right-handed batters in National League history.

In 1930, Giants manager John McGraw ranked Lindstrom ninth among the top 20 players of the previous quarter century. Babe Ruth picked him as his NL all-star third baseman over Traynor for the decade leading up to the first inter-league All Star game in 1933. Modern-day statistics guru Bill James, who rates Lindstrom No. 43 on his all-time third basemen list, placed him among the top three under-21 players at that position and called the 1927 Giant infield of Lindstrom, Hornsby, Travis Jackson and Bill Terry the decade’s best.