Rogers Hornsby HOF Legend
How do you get to the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame?
Just hit 500 homers, get 3000 hits, win 300 games or perhaps just save 300 games. Not an easy task, is it? But occasionally it does happen -- it happened to the gifted second baseman Rogers Hornsby, who retired at the age of 41.
Rogers Hornsby was recently inducted into the coveted shrine of hardball heroes by the Baseball Writers Association. Hornsby was always a favorite of the beat writers -- always quick with a quip and always willing to talk about the game -- but that's not why he got elected to the Hall of Fame. Hornsby played a good brand of baseball, too. He played in 2679 games, had 3307 hits, 278 home runs, 1813 RBIs and scored 1766 runs while batting .340 in his career.
Reminiscing about his life in baseball, Hornsby said it all began by hitting grand slam homers in the last of the ninth in his backyard and ended up in the Hall of Fame. "It was quite a trip. I can't believe they pay us money to play a kid's game. Thank goodness I was good at it. I only got a high school education and I had to cheat to get that. Who knows what I would have done without baseball. I was just a poor old country boy. For the longest time I even thought the last words of the national anthem were 'play ball'."
What a career and what a ballplayer.
Washington Sentors Legend Joins the Hall of Fame
Heavy Johnson truly was one of the best to play the game, and today he was enshrined into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame with 86.3% of writer's ballot votes.
"It is an honor to be mentioned with the greatest players of all time. I want to thank my family, friends and teammates for supporting me throughout this long career," the outstanding right fielder said at the induction ceremony.
In his career, Johnson played in 2305 games with a .324 lifetime batting average. Among his 2777 hits were 452 doubles, 191 triples and 154 home runs. He also scored 1398 runs and drove in 1431 runs.
Heavy Johnson retired from baseball at the age of 37 in 1932.
Cover image: The 1940's Yankees continue their winning ways and take another World Series. They are now tied with the cross town rivals the Giants for pennats won at 15. The Giants still have the lead in World Series wins with 11 the Yankees have 6. The Pirates, Athletics and the Red Sox have all collected 8 pennants.
Status Of The IMLB Experimant
As of the beginning of the 1943 season 187 of the 212 Negro League players have entered the Major Leagues. Currently there are 80 players active. There are another 25 more to come, including Larry Doby, Bobby Avila, Joe Black, Don Newcombe, Jackie Robinson, Minnie Minoso and Hank Thompson. As of this year five players have reached the Hall of Fame out of the 107 retired players; Heavy Johnson, John Henry Lloyd, Frank Grant, 'Smoky' Joe Williams and Wilber "Bullet" Rogan.
