Sam Crawford

Who was Sam Crawford?

Samuel Earl "Sam" Crawford, nicknamed "Wahoo Sam", was a Major League Baseball player who played outfield for the Cincinnati Reds and Detroit Tigers from 1899 to 1917. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1957.

Crawford batted and threw left-handed, stood 6 ft 0 in tall and weighed 190 pounds. He was one of the greatest sluggers of the dead-ball era and still holds the Major League's records for triples in a career and inside-the-park home runs in a season. He has the second best all-time record for most inside-the-park home runs in a career. He finished his career with 2,961 hits and a .309 batting average, and became first player to lead both American League and the National League in home runs.

Baseball legend Ed Barrow, who managed Crawford in his first two years with Detroit, and went on to convert Babe Ruth to an outfielder as general manager of the Yankees, once said that there never was a better hitter than Crawford. One of his contemporaries, Fielder Jones, said of Crawford: “None of them can hit quite as hard as Crawford. He stands up at the plate like a brick house and he hits all the pitchers, without playing favorites.”