Lefty O'Doul
Lefty O'Doul | |
---|---|
San Francisco, California, U.S. | |
Died: December 7, 1969 San Francisco, California, U.S. | (aged 72)|
Batted: Left Threw: Left | |
MLB debut | |
April 29, 1919, for the New York Yankees | |
Last appearance | |
September 30, 1934, for the New York Giants | |
Career statistics | |
Batting average | .349 |
Home runs | 113 |
Runs batted in | 542 |
Teams | |
| |
Career highlights and awards | |
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Member of the Japanese | |
Baseball Hall of Fame | |
Induction | 2002 |
Francis Joseph "Lefty" O'Doul (March 4, 1897 – December 7, 1969) was an American Major League Baseball player who went on to become an extraordinarily successful manager in the minor leagues. He was also a vital figure in both the pre-war establishment and post-war revival of professional baseball in Japan.
Career
Player
Born in
After the 1923 season, the
O'Doul returned to the majors in 1928, where he batted .319 as a platoon player. In 1929, he was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies and, teaming up with Chuck Klein, had one of the best offensive years in baseball history, leading the league in batting at .398 with 254 hits, 32 home runs, 122 runs batted in, and 152 runs scored. His hit total broke the previous National League record of 250 by Rogers Hornsby of the 1922 St. Louis Cardinals. The record was tied by Bill Terry in 1930.
After batting .383 with 22 homers during the 1930 season, O'Doul was traded to the
In an 11-year major league career, he
Manager
O'Doul then returned to the Pacific Coast League as manager of the San Francisco Seals from 1935 to 1951, later managing several other teams in the circuit and becoming the most successful manager in PCL history. One of his outstanding accomplishments while managing the Seals was developing the young Joe DiMaggio, who went on to a Hall of Fame career with the New York Yankees. O'Doul refused to take credit for DiMaggio's success, saying, "I was just smart enough to leave [him] alone."[7]
Legacy
O'Doul was instrumental in spreading baseball's popularity in Japan, serving as the sport's goodwill ambassador before and after World War II. The
O'Doul was inducted into the San Francisco Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame in 1981 and the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002. O’Doul was inducted into the Baseball Reliquary's Shrine of the Eternals in 2013.[8]
O'Doul's fame and popularity live on in his hometown of San Francisco and are enhanced by the fact that his former team now thrives as the
A bridge over McCovey Cove, near the Giants' home field of Oracle Park, is named the Lefty O'Doul Bridge in his honor.[10] Accordingly, the ballpark plaza and gate entrance adjacent to the bridge are also named after O'Doul.[15]
Besides the ineligible
See also
- List of Major League Baseball batting champions
- List of Major League Baseball career batting average leaders
- List of Major League Baseball career on-base percentage leaders
References
- ^ "Lefty O'Doul Pitching Statistics and History". Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved November 4, 2011.
- ^ "July 7, 1923 Boston Red Sox at Cleveland Indians Box Score and Play by Play". Baseball-Reference.com. July 7, 1923. Retrieved November 4, 2011.
- ^ "Cleveland Indians vs. Kansas City Royals — Recap — May 16, 2011 – ESPN". Scores.espn.go.com. May 16, 2011. Retrieved November 4, 2011.
- ^ "Los Angeles Dodgers prospect Joc Pederson joins Pacific Coast League 30/30 club for Albuquerque Isotopes | MiLB.com News | The Official Site of Minor League Baseball". milb.com. Retrieved September 6, 2014.
- ^ "Lefty O'Doul career statistics at Baseball-Reference". baseball-reference.com. Retrieved September 27, 2022.
- ^ "Lefty O'Doul top performances at retrosheet". retrosheet.org. Retrieved September 27, 2022.
- ^ Holmes, Dan (March 17, 2021). "Lefty O'Doul: Batting Champion, Baseball Missionary, & San Francisco's "Man in the Green Suit"". thedanholmes.medium.com. Retrieved April 15, 2023.
- ^ "Shrine of the Eternals – Inductees". Baseball Reliquary. Retrieved 2019-08-14.
- ^ "Welcome to the Lefty O'Doul's Restaurant & Cocktail Lounge in San Francisco, CA 94102". leftysf.com. Archived from the original on August 7, 2018. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
- ^ a b Scott Ostler (July 21, 2010). "Lefty O'Doul's thieves do the right thing". San Francisco Chronicle.
- ^ Steve Rubenstein (November 27, 2009). "Random festivities for Lefty O'Doul's Bloody Mary mix". San Francisco Chronicle.
- ^ Ravani, Sarah (February 1, 2017). "Lefty O'Doul's closes its doors on Geary Street in SF". SFGATE. Retrieved April 2, 2021.
- ^ "Legendary San Francisco baseball bar Lefty O'Doul's re-opens in Fisherman's Wharf". KRON4. November 20, 2018. Retrieved April 2, 2021.
- ^ Barmann, Jay (October 27, 2020). "Lefty O'Doul's Files For Bankruptcy Amid Owner's Legal Troubles". SFist. Retrieved June 26, 2022.
- ^ "AT&T Park Information – A-to-Z Guide | SFGiants.com: ballpark". sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com. Retrieved May 2, 2019.
- ^ "Career Leaders & Records for Batting Average".
- ^ "Fowler, Hodges, Kaat, Miñoso, Oliva, O'Neil Elected to Hall of Fame". baseballhall.org. December 5, 2021. Retrieved December 5, 2021.
Further reading
- Leutzinger, Richard. Lefty O’Doul, the Legend That Baseball Nearly Forgot: The Story of the Hall of Fame's Missing Star. Carmel, California: Carmel Bay Publishing Group, 1997. ISBN 1-883532-03-5.
- Dobbins, Dick; Twichell, Jon (editor: Rochmis, Jon). Nuggets on the Diamond, Professional Baseball in the Bay Area from the Gold Rush to the Present. San Francisco, California: Woodford Press, 1994. ISBN 0-942627-01-6.
- Snelling, Dennis. Lefty O'Doul: Baseball's Forgotten Ambassador. University of Nebraska Press, 2017. ISBN 9780803290969
External links
- Career statistics and player information from MLB, or ESPN, or Baseball Reference, or Fangraphs, or Baseball Reference (Minors), or Retrosheet
- Lefty O'Doul at the SABR Baseball Biography Project