Gene Lillard

Who was Gene Lillard?

Robert Eugene Lillard was an American professional baseball player. Primarily a pitcher in Major League Baseball, he began his baseball career as an infielder and was a prodigious minor league batsman, slugging over 300 career home runs, including 56 round-trippers as a member of the 1935 Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League.

The older brother of Bill Lillard, a former Major League shortstop, Gene Lillard was born in Santa Barbara, California. He threw and batted right-handed, stood 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed 178 pounds. He signed with the Chicago Cubs in 1932, and by his second pro season, he had reached the top level of the minors with the PCL Angels, leading the league at age 19 with 43 home runs. In 1934 Lillard hit 27 more homers for a Los Angeles team that would storm to the Pacific Coast League title by winning 137 out of 187 games. Then came his superlative 1935 season, in which he played in 170 games, scored 157 runs, made 232 hits, drove home 147 RBI, and batted .361. His 56 homers led the Coast League, but Lillard was surpassed in several other key batting categories by the loop's premier player, Joe DiMaggio of the San Francisco Seals.